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FOCUS: Step 2 – Finding the Y-DNA and Mitochondrial DNA of Your Ancestors

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This is the third article in our FOCUS series, providing step-by-step instructions for identifying brick-walled ancestors.

These two articles detail the initial steps:

By now, you will have selected the ancestor you want to focus on identifying, and you have tools in your toolkit for working with DNA matches who have no trees.

You may have ordered DNA tests from multiple vendors and are waiting on results, so while you wait, we’ll start with finding the Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA of your ancestors and identifying DNA testing candidates.

While it may sound counterintuitive, we’re going to be working with all of the major vendors, including FamilyTreeDNA, who actually tests for Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA, plus WikiTree, 23andMe, MyHeritage, Ancestry, GEDmatch and FamilySearch. They are all quite useful in different ways.

This Type of Searching Is Different

Normally, when we search for brick-walled ancestors, we are searching backward in time. In other words, we begin with the last person we know and work back from there, hoping to identify the previous generation.

If we don’t know Lucy’s birth surname and she was born about 1750, and married William Moore in the late 1770s, we begin with what we do know in that timeframe.

Searching for our ancestor’s Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA, and testers who carry that DNA, is fundamentally different because we begin with that ancestor and work forward in time.

In other words, if we want to find Lucy’s mitochondrial DNA, we begin with her daughters and track forward in time to the present. Hopefully, someone has already tested, and we can locate that result, but if not, we need to find people who descend through a specific path that carry Lucy’s mitochondrial DNA.

If we were searching for the Y-DNA of William Moore, we would look for his direct paternal descendant males who would carry the Moore surname.

Chicken or Egg?

I’ve been debating whether I should show you:

  1. How to locate and identify the Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA of your ancestors first, or
  2. How to use Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) to help break through your brick wall first

I decided to write the “how to locate” article first because I don’t want you to skim over and ignore the ‘how to use’ article, thinking it’s irrelevant to your research because you don’t carry the Y-DNA and/or mtDNA of your brick-walled ancestor.

There are lots of avenues to locate the Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA of your ancestors, something you definitely want to do. You’ll soon see that Y-DNA and mtDNA information can also assist with autosomal DNA results.

These are all pieces of your ancestor’s puzzle, and you never know which one will be the one to topple that wall.

Plus, you don’t know what you don’t know about that ancestor.

Let’s jump right in!

Who Carries the Y-DNA and Mitochondrial DNA of Your Ancestor?

As a quick refresher, only men can test for Y-DNA because only men have a Y chromosome which is inherited from their father. It’s passed in a direct paternal line from father to son, never mixed with DNA from the mother. Because it’s never divided during recombination like autosomal DNA, it’s uniquely useful for connecting lineages both recently and back in time hundreds and thousands of years.

Both Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA incur occasional mutations that function as genetic breadcrumbs, making them incredibly useful for reassembling those specific family lines where genealogy paper trails have broken or been interrupted.

Mitochondrial DNA is passed from mothers to their children of both sexes, but only daughters pass it on. This means that in the current generation, males and females can both test for the mtDNA of their direct, mother-to-mother, matrilineal line.

Anyone, including males, who descends from an ancestor through all females can test for that ancestor’s mitochondrial DNA.

If you’re lucky, you’ll carry the Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA of the ancestor you are seeking. If not, you’ll need to do one of two things:

  1. Determine if someone has already tested for that ancestor
  2. If not, find candidates to test

Y-DNA is generally easier because you at least (hopefully) have a surname to work with that has been passed from father to son, along with their Y chromosome.

Mitochondrial DNA is more challenging since surnames change each generation, so I’ve included several mitochondrial examples. Don’t skip over them, because the same research techniques apply to Y-DNA too, especially difficult cases.

If you’re a male, I strongly recommend that you order:

If you’re a female, you can only order the mtFull test, but you may be able to ask your father or brother or a male relative (with the surname in the lineage you seek) to take the Big Y-700 to represent your father’s family line. In other words, if you’re looking for a male Estes, you can ask your 2C Estes male who descends in a direct paternal line of all Estes men from your common ancestor.

Complete Versus Partial Tests

Haplogroup-only results derived from autosomal tests are fine as far as they go – but they don’t go very far. Most are what I would call midrange, providing testers with a haplogroup from maybe 2000 years ago, and some are much more distant than that. That isn’t to say they can’t be useful in a limited capacity, but Y-DNA and mtDNA have so much more potential.

You need comprehensive Y-DNA and mtDNA test results that identify all your haplogroup-defining mutations and can be refined as more people test and match family-level mutations.

Haplogroups are important, but you also need to match with other testers. Additionally, you’ll want the most complete haplogroup possible, because it will help you genealogically by providing a complete breadcrumb trail with the ability to identify your most recent common ancestor (MRCA).

FamilyTreeDNA is the only vendor that offers these complete tests that include matching with other testers, plus additional genealogy tools.

The Big Y-700 test scans for mutations in the stable portion of the Y chromosome and is the only way to obtain that personal-level information. It’s those recent mutations that will help place you within a biological family – or eliminate you from other lines, which prevents barking up the wrong tree.

The benefit of taking the test yourself, or sponsoring a test for someone willing to share their results with you, is that you have ready access to information through FamilyTreeDNA’s tools such as:

  • Matches with other Y-DNA and mtDNA testers
  • Matches Map (ancestor locations)
  • Advanced Matching, which provides a filtered list of people who match you on BOTH your Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA AND your Family Finder autosomal test
  • Haplotype clusters (for mtDNA)
  • Your mutations
  • Block Tree (for Y-DNA)
  • Customized Discover tools

Click any image to enlarge

  • Discover’s Advanced Tools like the Match Time Tree, shown above, which displays your matches with their earliest known ancestors (EKA) together on the Time Tree
  • Globetrekker™ (for Y-DNA with mtDNA coming soon)
  • Up to 30 Ancient Connections
  • Up to 20 Notable Connections

FamilyTreeDNA’s free Discover tool, here, provides public information for everyone about haplogroups, but if you haven’t taken the test, you won’t receive matching and customized information described above, which is essential to genealogy.

Upgrades for Partial Tests

You may have previously tested at a lower level at FamilyTreeDNA.

For mtDNA, the early mtPlus test examined a portion of the mitochondria and provided matching at lower levels, as do the 12-111 marker Y-DNA tests. Both provide a predicted high-level basic or midrange haplogroup based on the mutation information available in those limited tests.

If you took an earlier, partial test, you can sign on to your account to upgrade by clicking on the “Big Y,” even though it’s greyed out. Grey simply indicates that you don’t currently have that level of test.

Click on “Full” to upgrade to the mtFull test.

Test Features at Various Levels

Depending on the type of test you take, and at which vendor, you may have a fully refined or partial haplogroup.

Discover provides a substantial amount of information if you receive a partial haplogroup:

A partial haplogroup is better than no haplogroup, but it’s also like working with one hand tied behind your back. If at all possible, you need to work with a full haplogroup and matches.

Testers who click through to Discover from their own test, or a test they manage, can view additional features not available in the free version.

The table below shows the four different ways you can access and view your ancestor’s haplogroup. Based on the testing level and/or how they tested, the haplogroup level will vary.

Clearly, the best scenario is when you either take the Big Y-700 or mtFull test yourself, or you have access to the test results of someone who takes that test to represent your ancestor’s DNA. Primary access confers the greatest amount of information, but you can still glean information in other ways.

Feature Introductory Level Test at FamilyTreeDNA* Tester’s Big Y-700 or mtFull Test – Full Access Partial Haplogroup from Autosomal Test Your Ancestor’s Haplogroup but without Full Access
Matching Yes, at that lower level Best – at all levels No No
Matches Map Yes, at lower level Yes No No
Mutation Values Yes, STR markers at lower Y-DNA level Yes, STRs (Y-DNA) and SNPs Not directly but through Discover Not directly but through Discover
Haplotree & SNPs with surnames (Y-DNA only) Yes, at lower level Yes No No
Block Tree (Big Y test only) No Yes No No

 
Advanced Matching (multiple types of tests) Yes, at that level Yes No No
Ability to Join Group Projects Yes Yes Only test owner or manager can join Only test owner or manager can join
Discover Reports Yes, same information as the free version due to lower coverage Yes, when clicking through from your FamilyTreeDNA account Free version Free version
Haplogroup Story Yes, at lower haplogroup level Yes – best and highest level Yes, at lower haplogroup level Yes, at lower haplogroup level
Country Frequency Map and Table views Yes, at lower haplogroup level Yes, at most refined haplogroup level Yes, at lower haplogroup level Yes, at most refined haplogroup level
Notable Connections Same as free version About 20 for Y-DNA, 11 for mtDNA About 10 for Y-DNA, 3 for mtDNA About 10 for Y-DNA, 3 for mtDNA
Migration Map Yes, at lower level Yes, at advanced level Yes, at lower level Yes, at advanced level
Globetrekker (Y-DNA only, mtDNA coming soon) No Yes No No
Ancient Connections Same as free version About 30 About 10 for Y-DNA, 3 for mtDNA About 10 for Y-DNA, 3 for mtDNA
Time Tree Yes, at lower haplogroup level – generally 2,000 years or older Yes, at most refined haplogroup level, often within genealogical timeframe Yes, at lower haplogroup level – generally 2,000 years or older Yes, at most refined level
Match Time Tree No Yes – your matches & their EKA on the Time Tree including WikiTree Connections and Ancient DNA No No
Ancestral Path Yes, at lower haplogroup level Yes Yes, at lower haplogroup level Yes
Suggested Projects Yes Yes, at more refined level Yes, but must test with FamilyTreeDNA to join Yes, but must test with FamilyTreeDNA to join
Scientific Details, ages and variants Yes, at lower level Yes Yes, at lower level Yes
Compare Haplogroups Yes Yes Yes Yes

*Note that often your ancestor’s haplogroup as reported by the Family Finder (autosomal) test is more refined, meaning closer in time, than the Y-DNA haplogroups predicted by STR tests, but both are always substantially less specific than the Big Y-700 test. As of the publication date of this article, Family Finder does not yet report a mitochondrial DNA haplogroup, but that is planned for the future.

This chart only includes features you would specifically use to identify an ancestor or ancestral lineage. There are other reports provided with your test that will be of interest. Discover provides about 14 reports that include various options.

Now we can envision:

  • The benefits of finding our ancestors’ Y-DNA and mtDNA
  • The benefits of obtaining the most refined haplogroup possible
  • The benefits of being able to view the results directly

You may not be able to achieve all of these, but even a partial haplogroup is better than no haplogroup at all, and a fully refined haplogroup, even if you can’t see everything in another tester’s account, is better than a partial haplogroup.

So, let’s see how to find your ancestors’ haplogroups. I collect them all, not just for brick-walled ancestors, but because they tell a part of our story not available through any other means.

Finding Your Ancestor’s Mitochondrial and Y-DNA

If you are the DNA tester for your brick-wall ancestor, then you’re golden, but chances are that you’re not.

If you’re searching for Y-DNA, and you don’t carry that Y-DNA yourself, you’ll need a male relative who carries that Y chromosome to test.

Males carry the Y-DNA of their direct patrilineal ancestors, shown in the image below on the left side in blue, plus the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of their mother, shown with yellow hearts at far right.

At the 4th generation level, we have 4 Y-DNA lineages to collect (light blue, dark green, medium green, and teal), and a total of 8 mtDNA lineages.

Let’s say you’re searching for your father’s mother’s mother as your brick-wall ancestor.

Your father (and his siblings) carry the mtDNA of his mother, shown above in fuchsia, as do her grandchildren through her daughters. That’s why your father has a fuchsia heart. If close family members test, chances are you can arrange to manage their test or view their results. (Be sure they take the autosomal Family Finder test too. You’ll need that later.

If you don’t manage their test for them, you’ll need to ask to see their results to view matches and work with trees.

I have a family project at FamilyTreeDNA that I manage. I ask people who have tested for a particular ancestor to join that project so I can easily view their results while they continue to manage their test, and can select how much they want me to see or do.

FamilyTreeDNA is currently working on a multi-kit management feature that will address the challenge of sharing results.

But I Don’t Know of Any Cousins…

Let’s say you don’t know of and can’t readily identify anyone who descends from your ancestor appropriately.

If the ancestor you seek is a male, mitochondrial DNA is probably not going to help you because men don’t pass their mitochondrial DNA on to their descendants. In order to obtain a male ancestor’s mitochondrial DNA, you’d need to be able to identify a sister or someone known to descend from his mother (or sisters) through all females to the current generation. Needless to say, if you know who his mother is, you probably already know who he is.

If your brick wall is a female ancestor, your first order of business is to find someone who descends from her through all females to the current generation, where the tester can be male or female.

Why is this so important?

Mitochondrial DNA isn’t admixed with the father’s DNA, so it’s not divided in each generation. This means that mitochondrial DNA is the only direct line-of-sight we have that bypasses both changing surnames and genetic recombination for females.

Who Has Tested for Your Ancestor?

If you’re NOT the tester for your brick-walled ancestor or aren’t the curator of the test, your first step is to see if someone else has already tested.

This can sometimes be challenging.

It’s impossible to obtain mitochondrial DNA for an unknown ancestor if there are no known daughters, and for Y-DNA if there are no known sons. You may need to review genealogical resources to make sure you’ve identified all of that ancestor’s children.

Barring those scenarios, there are a surprising number of resources available to find descendants.

WikiTree

The first place I check to see if someone has already tested for a particular ancestor is WikiTree.

WikiTree is the one place where you find the ancestor along with the people who have taken DNA tests who descend from that ancestor. It’s invaluable.

Normally, you have to work with matches to identify your common ancestor. WikiTree works the other way around. Your starting place is with the ancestor.

You can’t Google your mystery ancestor’s name because if you knew their name, they wouldn’t be a mystery ancestor – but you can Google their spouse or a child.

I’m using an example from my own line because my mitochondrial DNA results are connected to her.

I’m Googling:

Barbara Mehlheimer born 1822 died 1906 in Indiana at WikiTree

Google was slightly confused but the results got me to where I needed to go.

Barbara Mehlheimer married George Drechsel and her daughter was Barbara Drechsel who married Jacob Kirsch.

First, check Barbara’s WikiTree profile card to confirm you’ve found the correct person.

Next, click on the DNA tab beneath her profile information (or just scroll down). She has four DNA Connections.

You can see that one person, me, who carries Barbara’s mitochondrial DNA has connected their DNA to Barbara’s profile. I did this by entering my DNA information on my WikiTree profile, then WikiTree connects my DNA haplogroup information from mother to mother to mother to Barbara and propagates my DNA haplogroup to her, her matrilineal ancestors, and their female descendants. If you click on the haplogroup, it takes you directly to that haplogroup in Discover.

Three people have connected their autosomal results to Barbara. This information can be very important, and not just for mitochondrial DNA. It allows us to identify autosomal testers we may match at different testing companies who descend from Barbara.

In your research journal, make notes of these names, testing companies, and kit numbers. Remember that this doesn’t mean the company noted is the only place someone has taken an autosomal DNA test. I’ve tested at all of the major companies, but only GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA are listed here.

For Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA, the haplogroup is shown, although when testers receive a new Y-DNA or Mitotree haplogroup, they seldom think to revise it in WikiTree. This means their current haplogroup may be more specific and improved since the WikiTree information was entered.

Some people may have tested at different levels too. In this case, Buster Estes, who is now deceased, was one of the earliest testers, long before the Big Y tests were available. He only took a 25-marker test, so his haplogroup was predicted as R-M269. Garmon, on the other hand, was able to upgrade his Y-DNA test to the Big Y-700, and his haplogroup is much more refined at R-ZS3700. Their haplogroups don’t match exactly due to the levels at which they tested, but they also don’t preclude the two testers from belonging to the same genetic line.

This screenshot of Discover’s Compare function illustrates how important the Big Y-700 test is when compared to the STR test’s predicted haplogroups. The man who developed the mutation that defines R-ZS3700 lived about 1750 CE, and the man who developed R-M269 lived about 4450 BCE, or 6,450 years ago. That’s a big difference.

Using a combination of multiple testers and genealogy, we’ve identified the man who developed R-ZS3700 and passed it on to his sons. Moses Estes was born in 1711 in Virginia and all of his descendant testers carry R-ZS3700.

Now that’s extremely useful information, because we know that any man with haplogroup R-ZS3700 descends from Moses Estes in a direct paternal line, and any man whose haplogroup is not R-ZS3700 or doesn’t include R-ZS3700 upstream of his haplogroup does not descend from Moses Estes in that way.

Please add your DNA tests, including haplogroups and your kit number, to your profile at WikiTree so that the haplogroup information can be populated appropriately to your ancestors.

Searching for a Test Candidate Using Autosomal Descendants

When you’re searching for a testing candidate at WikiTree, you can click through to the tester’s profile and view exactly how they descend from the ancestor shown.

Let’s say that no one has linked a mitochondrial DNA test to the ancestor you’re searching for, but several people have linked autosomal tests to that ancestor’s profile card.

Click on the tester’s name and then on the DNA Ancestors tab to see how they descend from that ancestor. If you’re lucky, you’ll find someone in the autosomal list who is a mitochondrial DNA testing candidate.

If you’re looking for a Y-DNA tester, begin by looking for a male with the same surname as that ancestor. If you’re looking for a mitochondrial DNA tester, you’ll need to view each tester’s ancestors.

Regardless of whether they are a mitochondrial or Y-DNA testing candidate, you’ll identify your most recent common ancestor (MRCA) for each person, information that will become essential for the autosomal tools that we’ll be discussing in future articles.

In your research journal, I suggest that you record all of their descent information now, including their names, where they tested, your MRCA, kit numbers and any other relevant notes.

If you’d like to ask them to take a specific test, or if they already have and you’d like to know more, you can message WikiTree users by clicking on their profile, and then on the little envelope beside the profile manager’s name.

Finding Your Ancestor’s DNA Descendants at WikiTree

Let’s say that no one in the DNA list of people who have already taken tests descends from your ancestor matrilineally. Don’t worry, there are still more options!

At the top of the WikiTree page for that ancestor, click the down arrow, then on DNA.

The default tab shows the DNA Ancestors of the profile you’re viewing. You’ll see Y-DNA for males, and both mitochondrial and X-chromosome ancestors for everyone.

You may notice that there’s an ancestor listed for your brick wall ancestor. That’s wonderful, but don’t jump for joy quite yet. Remember, WikiTree is a one-world tree, and you need to verify the underlying genealogy in every tree here, and at every vendor.

Always confirm using multiple sources, meaning resources other than trees. The great thing about WikiTree is that there are often several sources listed in each person’s profile, and other resources that can help immensely. I love WikiTree, but I’m always skeptical of information in any tree, and I prove everything to my own satisfaction. I wrote several articles about that topic in the Genealogy Proof Series, here.

To find testers, you’ll need to view your ancestor’s DNA Descendants.

Click on the DNA Descendants tab.

The Mitochondrial DNA Descendants view shows potential candidates for mtDNA testing. Remember, in the current generation, males and females can both test so long as they descend from that ancestor through all females.

In the case of Barbara Mehlheimer Drechsel and her descendants, there are several males who are immediately eliminated because they’ve been deceased for more than a century, and several daughters who didn’t have children.

Not every person’s line on WikiTree has been added or developed. You can see that three daughters’ lines that might hold candidates don’t list all their children, and I still need to research two additional people. That means I still have five candidate lines to extend that have potential mtDNA testers.

So, in summary, if Barbara was the ancestor I was seeking:

  • One person has already tested
  • Three daughters don’t have their families extended.
  • Two have daughters that I need to research.

For both Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA, I like to have at least two people who descend from different children of the ancestor, and whose tests match at a level that does not preclude that lineage. This helps confirm both the genetic line and the genealogy of both testers.

With male ancestors, having more than one tester for each line through different siblings is essential.

Kit Numbers, Earliest Known Ancestors and Google

When DNA kit numbers are included at WikiTree, you’ll want to Google to see if that kit number is shown in a public Group Project at FamilyTreeDNA where you may find more information.

The exact search string to use to find a specific kit at FamilyTreeDNA within projects is:

“9993” site:familytreedna.com

Replace 9993 with the kit number you’re interested in. You can also add the word “projects”, without quotes, to the end of that string to omit forums and limit the search to within projects. This string both focuses and limits the search, filtering out most noise.

By clicking on “read more,” you’re taken directly to the Estes Family Surname Project Y-DNA page.

The green haplogroups are SNP-confirmed, unlike the red predicted haplogroups from the lower-level 12, 25, 37, 67 or 111-marker tests. The R-ZS3700 haplogroup was obtained from the Big Y-700 test, so it is the most granular and specific. If this is your line, you’ve just found your ancestor’s haplogroup. It’s also possible that, by testing, you could receive an even more specific haplogroup.

Please note that haplogroup R-M269 is the most common haplogroup in Europe, and isn’t specific enough to use for anything other than very basic information. It can rule out two people with different base haplogroups, like haplogroup I or J, for example, as descending from a common patrilineal ancestor.

Project administrators are all volunteers, and each administrator groups their Group Project members differently, so take a few minutes to review the project pages. You may find additional testers who have joined this project who descend from your ancestors or your ancestral line.

You may also find other lines with the same surname and a substantially different haplogroup, which tells you that there are multiple genetic lines with the same surname. I have one example of this in the same county, at the same time, found in men by the same exact name – think John Smith. So frustrating. Without DNA testing, we would NEVER have sorted through those two same-name but completely different lines.

However, finding people who match your ancestor’s DNA but don’t have your earliest known ancestor (EKA) may be just the clue you need to knock down that brick wall. How are your ancestor and that other person’s EKA connected, and in what timeframe? Do they share a surname? A location? Are there other clues?

It’s unlikely that you’ll be able to use a kit number to Google unless you find one at WikiTree, but you can still search using the oldest name in that line that you know.

nicholas ewstas site:familytreedna.com

Replace the kit number with your EKA, in this case, “Nicholas Ewstas” in the search string, either with or without quotes. This takes you to the same page and any other projects that someone may have joined using exactly that earliest known ancestor’s name. Keep in mind that you’re only looking at their oldest ancestor, not every ancestor between them and their EKA. Your brick wall may lie someplace in there, which is why you need to check matches and view their trees.

Since women’s surnames change in every generation, they generally won’t be found in specific ancestral surname projects like men. This makes Googling using the ancestor’s name even more important.

catherine lejeune site:familytreedna.com

We don’t know who Catherine LeJeune’s mother is, so finding that someone has entered Catherine as their EKA may be critically important.

This is especially important for female brick-walled ancestors, since using this Google string with their daughters’ names may reveal someone else’s EKA in that genetic line within a project.

After clicking through to the project page, be sure to enlarge the page to display the full project, and use your browser search since partial results with predicted haplogroups may not be grouped with full mitochondrial sequence results.

Multiple people who descend from Catherine LeJeune have tested. The first six only took the partial test years ago. The bottom two testers took the full sequence test and have a new Mitotree haplogroup – U6a7a1a. We know that Catherine was born about 1633, in France, and we can see that other people have also tested and list different EKAs. Next, it’s time to research the other ancestors shown, or check WikiTree to see if any of these testers are listed there so you can contact them.

Now that you have found your ancestor’s haplogroup, you can use the free version of Discover to learn more. I wrote about using mitochondrial DNA and Discover in the article Mitochondrial DNA A-Z: A Step-by-Step Guide to Matches, Mitotree, and mtDNA Discover.

Now, let’s move to the DNA testing companies to see how we can find our ancestors’ Y-DNA, mitochondrial DNA, or testers, at 23andMe, FamilyTreeDNA, Ancestry, and MyHeritage.

At 23andMe

23andMe is not a genealogy company. That said, if you can figure out how people are related to you, you might be able to obtain a partial haplogroup for an ancestor. 23andMe shows both Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA haplogroups to autosomal matches, but there is no Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA matching, or associated tools.

23andMe caps matches without a subscription at only 1,500, and they don’t support trees, so I struggle to find useful haplogroups without an associated surname.

Browsing or searching your 1,500 allowed matches (you can have around 5,000 with a subscription) for a particular surname may provide you with an abbreviated haplogroup for both male and female ancestors.

Despite my best efforts, while my maternal grandfather’s mother is not unknown, nor are her ancestors for several generations reaching back into Germany, I’ve been unable to find her mitochondrial haplogroup. Evaline Miller (1857-1939) was born and died in Kosciusko County, Indiana, where she married Hiram Bauke Ferverda, an immigrant from the Netherlands.

Ferverda is an unusual surname, so let’s use it for our example. Thankfully, I’m not dealing with something like Smith.

I entered Ferverda in the 23andMe search bar and it shows four results, two of which are in the 2C-3C range, and one that’s further distant.

I already have the Ferverda Y-DNA, so I don’t need that, but I do need the mitochondrial DNA of Eva Miller Ferverda, and I really don’t want to sift through Miller surnames.

I know who Mr. Ferverda is on my match list, and which ancestor we share. His mitochondrial DNA is not Eva Miller’s.

Fortunately, I know who Eva’s parents were, as shown above on my MyHeritage tree, so I can search for Ferverda, Miller, Lentz, Ruhle, Wolflin, and Heubach, several of which are unusual. Reaching back into Germany is difficult.

It’s likely I match all four of those people at 23andMe through a common lineage that descends from either Hiram Ferverda, Eva Miller, or both. Let’s see what I can put together.

Emily is estimated to be a 2C2R. She is younger than I am based on the birth year she provided in her profile which I am not showing for privacy reasons. Emily also stated that her maternal grandmother was born in Warsaw, Kosciusko County, Indiana, and provided family surnames that include Ferverda, Miller, Glant, Zimmermann, and others.

Kosciusko County is where Evaline Miller lived with Hiram Ferverda, and their daughter, Margaret, married Chester Glant. Margaret Ferverda Glant’s daughter, Joyce, was born in Kosciusko County and married a Zimmerman.

But now, I was stuck. That’s all I had in my desktop genealogy software.

I shifted to Ancestry, where I discovered a death certificate and other information that provided what I needed to close the gap.

This information confirmed Emily’s statement that her maternal grandmother was born in Warsaw, Kosciusko County, Indiana.

Therefore, drum roll…Emily carries Eva’s mitochondrial DNA haplogroup, which is T2b.

Let’s move on to the other two matches, both of whom carry haplogroup T2b.

Ian’s maternal grandmother’s birthplace is Leesburg, Kosciusko County, Indiana, and his surnames include both Ferverda and Robison.

Eva Miller Ferverda’s daughter, Chloe Ferverda, married Rolland Robison and had a daughter, Charlotte, whose daughter married a man with Ian’s surname. Their information allowed me to connect the dots appropriately. Ian’s mitochondrial haplogroup is also T2b, which confirms Eva Miller’s mtDNA haplogroup through a second child.

Shirley, the third match who carries haplogroup T2b, also shows the surnames of Ferverda and Robison, and tracks back matrilineally to Eva Miller.

In spite of the many challenges at 23andMe, and thanks to the rare surname of Ferverda, I’ve identified Eva Miller’s partial haplogroup, but not her full haplogroup. A partial haplogroup is much better than nothing and gives me something to work with.

I checked at Ancestry, MyHeritage and FamilyTreeDNA to see if any of those three people have tested there and have trees. Indeed, Ian tested at FamilyTreeDNA and I had corresponded with him and made a note that he is a matrilineal descendant of Eva Miller Ferverda, but he has not taken a mitochondrial DNA test there.

We know that if Emily, Ian, Shirley, or another appropriately descended person were to take a full-sequence mitochondrial DNA test, we would learn a LOT more about Eva’s mitochondrial DNA. If I can’t locate someone who has already tested, I’ll reach out to these people at 23andMe and offer a scholarship for a full-sequence mtDNA test.

It’s ironic that at the most restricted and least likely testing company, I found three people descended from Eva Miller. Hope springs eternal.

Unfortunately, T2b was formed about 8450 years ago and is a very broad haplogroup made up of many subclades, but at least I have something now – and this partial haplogroup may be just the seed I need to lead to more.

Now, let’s move to FamilyTreeDNA and hope that someone there has already taken the mtFull test.

At FamilyTreeDNA

There are multiple ways to find the Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA of your ancestors at FamilyTreeDNA.

Project Search

You can search for surname projects along with other types of projects.

On FamilyTreeDNA’s main page, without signing in, scroll all the way to the very bottom footer where you will see the Group Projects link.

If you’re searching for a surname, enter that surname in the search box.

The next screen shows projects that people with the Estes surname, including females, have joined. This includes all types of projects and does NOT mean that these projects are relevant to your line, but it does include two surname projects you may find useful.

Scrolling down shows you how many people with the surname of Estes have tested. Keep in mind that some will be females, some use married names, and sometimes people use an alias, so they aren’t included in this count.

Surname projects for females aren’t terribly helpful since the surname typically changes in each generation, at least in Western cultures.

You can also search for keywords, such as Acadian. If you know that ancestral line is Acadian, you may find clues there, including descendants of your brick-wall ancestor.

Group Project Time Tree

Many Group Projects at FamilyTreeDNA have enabled the Y-DNA Group Time Tree feature. When visiting the project, if the administrator has the Group Time Tree enabled, click on that link under the DNA results tab.

The Group Time Tree is a genetic tree of Y-DNA testers within that project based on the groups created by the project administrator.

The groups constructed by the administrator are shown at left, the Time Tree in the middle, and the testers with their EKAs and country of origin flags at right. I’ve added the red text to reflect the Estes genealogical lineage.

Based on the timeline at the top, you can see how closely these Y-DNA testers are related in time. Each haplogroup shown represents a different branching genetic lineage – breadcrumbs at work. If you are a genetic Estes male who descends from the Estes family that originated in Kent, England, and you take the Big Y-700 test, you’ll be a member of R-BY482 or its descendant haplogroups.

Keep in mind that not all testers join group projects, so it’s likely that there will be matches on your match list that aren’t here. Furthermore, only Big Y testers appear on any Time Tree.

The Group Time Tree is public, but when you sign in to your account and click on the Match Time Tree from your account, you’ll be able to view more, including testers’ trees and WikiTree connections if your matches have connected themselves to WikiTree.

Click to enlarge

I’ve converted the Estes genetic tree into a genealogical tree in a spreadsheet based on the trees of DNA matches. I’ve also included STR testers, because they are good candidates to upgrade to Big Y tests, and they are shown in the Estes Group Project. They can’t be included in the Time Trees because they don’t have the SNPs discovered with the Big Y tests. Please note that not all testers were included in this spreadsheet.

You can follow the paths of the various haplogroups. All of the red-background, black-outlined cells are Big Y-500 or Big Y-700 testers. The Big Y-500 was obsoleted several years ago in favor of the much more informative Big Y-700 test, which reveals additional haplogroups because it tests more of the Y chromosome. I’m still hoping that people will upgrade, although some testers are deceased and can’t.

The Big Y-500 tests with red stars are candidates to be upgraded to the Big Y-700 to potentially receive a more specific haplogroup. The balance of the tests in red cells are Big Y-700 tests, which identify several additional Estes haplogroup paths.

Let’s look at an example.

Beginning at the top, we know that R-BY482 is present in Nicholas Ewstas, born in 1496 in Kent, England, because all of his descendant testers carry that haplogroup too. Additionally, three generations later, in Silvester’s generation, he developed the additional mutation named R-BY490. We know it developed in Silvester’s generation for two reasons:

  • The descendants of Silvester’s brother, Robert, born in 1603, do NOT carry R-BY490. Robert’s son Matthew’s descendants only carry R-BY482.
  • The descendants of both of Silvester’s sons, Richard (pink column) and Abraham (the entire green row), all carry R-BY490.

All of the descendants of Silvester’s son, Abraham, born about 1647, the Virginia settler, who have taken the Big Y test carry R-BY490. Additionally, descendants of several of Abraham’s sons, color-coded columns beneath the green row, have developed additional haplogroups. Several more testers would likely have new haplogroups if they took the Big Y-700 test. A new haplogroup requires at least two men with the same unique mutation (breadcrumb), in addition to R-BY490 (in this case), to identify a specific lineage and assign it a new haplogroup name.

Abraham’s son, Moses Estes, born in 1711, is a good example. We know that Moses developed the mutation R-ZS3700 because four of his descendants have taken the Big Y-700 test and have that mutation that is not found in Moses’s brothers’ lines. All four Moses descendants carry R-ZS3700, and two, in the James Carroll Estes line, have developed an additional mutation, haplogroup R-BY154784.

Until Big Y testing became available, descendants of the R-BY154784 lineage didn’t know where they fit in the Estes tree, because the connecting genealogical records between Missouri, where their ancestors are found, and Virginia, where they came from, were missing.

Therefore, if you don’t carry the Estes Y-DNA, but you can find your ancestral line in projects, you can potentially do two things:

  1. Identify the specific lineage to which you belong, especially if you have access to your relative’s test results, including matches and trees.
  2. Without matches, you may still be able to identify at least some haplogroup levels, such as R-BY482 or R-BY490, which opens the door to:
    • Using autosomal results to find matches with Estes-specific haplogroups
    • Using Discover to utilize the dozen+ public reports available for everyone
    • Asking people to upgrade

While I’ve been using the Estes DNA results because it’s a project I administer and the one with which I’m the most familiar, this same approach works for mitochondrial DNA as well, especially if you can identify your ancestor’s DNA in a project.

Finding Projects in Discover

The public version of Discover provides surname and project searches as well, but works a little differently.

Select Group Project and enter the term you wish to search for.

Clicking on the project takes you directly to that project’s Group Time Tree where you can identify your ancestral line.

People who have tested at FamilyTreeDNA can join projects. Many projects accept autosomal testers who descend from that family line.

To join projects, sign in, then from your home page, click on “Group Projects” in the header, and make your selection.

Search for Surnames in Family Finder Autosomal Matches

Now that you’ve identified your ancestor’s haplogroup, you can use that information to find, rule in, or rule out various people in your Family Finder match list as your ancestors’ haplogroup carriers.

FamilyTreeDNA displays the haplogroups of your autosomal matches who have taken the:

The Family Finder test doesn’t test either the Y chromosome or mitochondria fully, but it target-tests a selected number of non-autosomal haplogroup-defining locations. The haplogroups that Family Finder identifies are typically midrange, meaning they are from roughly 2,000 to 5,000 years old. Furthermore, different tests on different chips at different times didn’t always test the same locations. This relatively new Family Finder haplogroup feature is free.

Uploaded DNA tests from other vendors may or may not receive a haplogroup, but regardless, it will NOT be displayed to their matches. Not all other vendors test or include Y-DNA or mtDNA SNP locations in their upload files, and your mileage may vary widely.

My cousin David has taken the mtFull test, so his mitochondrial haplogroup is the most refined possible, but his Y-DNA haplogroup of R-L151 was derived from his Family Finder test. Haplogroup R-L151 is about 5,000 years old. If I needed his haplogroup, it’s useful to rule out other major haplogroup branches that might be found in other men by the same surname. Plus, I can learn quite a bit from Discover.

Haplogroups are displayed in your Family Finder match list for everyone who has taken a Y-DNA or mtDNA test, but currently, only Y-DNA haplogroups are provided for Family Finder results. Midrange mtDNA haplogroups are planned for sometime in the future.

There are several methods to search for either a specific surname or haplogroup within Family Finder matches.

Let’s use my Ferverda/Miller/Lentz haplogroup T2b revealed at 23andMe. That haplogroup would almost assuredly be broken down further with full-sequence testing, and it might have been renamed as a different subgroup of haplogroup T in the new Mitotree.

Let’s begin with searching for haplogroup T2b.

The search bar allows users to select Name, Ancestral Surname, mtDNA Haplogroup or Y-DNA Haplogroup.

You’ll notice that there are a total of 59 results that include T2b as a part of the haplogroup. The mitochondrial lineage I’m seeking is my mother’s paternal grandmother, so the matches should be on my mother’s side, although there is no guarantee I don’t match someone autosomally on my father’s side too.

I checked the trees of all 59 people in the T2b category, and unfortunately, none descended from the line I need.

If you change search terms or categories, be sure to clear your filters.

Under the Filter option, you can filter for several options in addition to searching.

For our next example, I’ve selected both the Big Y-500 and Big Y-700 tests, and searched for Ferverda.

I already have the Ferverda Big Y-700 haplogroup, but if I didn’t, I would now!

Don’t forget that you can sort by any number of fields, and you can download your entire match list into a csv file. I find that easier because I can search, sort and filter at will.

Don’t forget to check back from time to time as more matches are added.

Utilizing Haplogroup Projects

Under the Group Projects header, or by Googling for a haplogroup T2 (or T, or T2b, etc.) at FamilyTreeDNA, you can view the haplogroup T2 project, and filter for haplogroup T2b or any subclade.

Be sure to expand the project’s page size to display the entire project. It defaults to displaying 25 rows at a time, but you can see the number of pages at the bottom of the page. I expanded the page size to 5000 so that I can use my browser search for known surnames in the mitochondrial line.

By using my browser search and searching for each known surname by generation, I searched for Ferverda, Miller, Lentz, Ruhle, Wolflin and Heubach.

I was VERY excited for a minute when I found a Lydia Lentz listed as a tester’s EKA.

Because the female’s surname changes in every generation, there’s only one family in this lineage that Lydia Lentz could have been a member of to represent the mitochondrial DNA of Eva Miller whose mother was Margaret Elizabeth Lentz.

So, the question is whether or not Lydia Lentz is the sister of Margaret Elizabeth Lentz.

Shifting to my desktop software, it’s easy to see that Jacob Lentz and Johanna Frederica Ruhle had four Lentz daughters who lived to marry and have children. None of those daughters were named Lydia, so the Lydia Lentz EKA in the haplogroup T2 project is not representative of Eva Miller’s mother and grandmother.

Margaret Elizabeth Lentz is Eva Miller’s mother, and I had already searched within the project for Miller. I added Yost, Gallagher, and Overlease to the browser search in the haplogroup T2 project with the hope that someone might have listed a woman with one of those surnames as their EKA, but no such luck.

Not everyone joins projects, or provides their earliest known ancestors, but I didn’t find the surnames of any of the females in my known line here.

Let’s see if Ancestry can help.

At Ancestry

Ancestry doesn’t do Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA testing, so you won’t find your ancestors’ Y-DNA or mtDNA at Ancestry, but their trees can help you find testers.

Let’s shift to Louisa Drechsel, one of the daughters in the Mehlheimer/Drechsel line we were working with earlier that needed more research.

I looked at the hints for Emma Louisa Drechsel, who was always called Louise or Aunt Lou in my family, and discovered another Ancestry member with Emma in their tree.

I clicked through to the tree to discover that the tree’s home person does not descend from Barbara matrilineally, which means they are not a candidate for Barbara’s mitochondrial DNA.

I then clicked on the tree owner’s name to see whether they happen to be an autosomal DNA match to me. They are not. Without messaging them, there’s no way to know whether they have taken a DNA test, and there’s really no point since they are not a mitochondrial DNA candidate.

While I’m at Ancestry, I’m going to check ThruLines to see if anyone who is an autosomal DNA match to me also descends matrilineally from Barbara. There are no autosomal matches shown who have our common ancestor in their tree, and who are mitochondrial candidates.

Remember, a male between the ancestor and the testing candidate always blocks the mitochondrial DNA path.

These people are all autosomal DNA matches.

There may be descendants who either aren’t DNA matches or who haven’t tested who might be mitochondrial candidates. They can be located by checking Ancestry’s trees for our common ancestors and determining how the tree owner relates to that ancestor, if they do.

Compare Trees is New

Ancestry recently introduced “Compare trees”, a new beta feature. It may not be fully rolled out to everyone yet, and because it’s in beta, the feature may change.

To access this feature, go to your tree, not their profile card.

I clicked on Barbara Mehlheimer’s link in my tree, which displays this little mini-profile. Then click on “Compare trees” at the bottom.

Ancestry displays your tree, at right, and the other tree, at left. You can select another tree to compare at top right.

Ancestry’s comparison only shows a total of three generations – the selected person, their parents, and their children.

The person I actually want to follow is Louisa, but if you click on Louisa’s card here, it simply compares the two Louisas – it doesn’t shift down a generation.

This means that to follow more recent generations, you have to go back to your tree, select someone further down in the tree and repeat the process.

This process is cumbersome, but doable thanks to the new Compare Tree function. I’ll come back to this after checking the rest of the “easier to harvest” fruit from other resources. Remember to make notes in your research journal so you don’t forget where you left off – although trees are always changing.

MyHeritage has one of my favorite tools.

At MyHeritage

Recently, MyHeritage has begun providing midrange Y-DNA haplogroups for some of their DNA testers. If you’re one of the lucky testers, you can use the free Discover tool to learn about your haplogroup, but a haplogroup alone won’t help you much with genealogy. You need matching and advanced tools for that.

Unfortunately, you can’t see the haplogroups of your matches, so you can’t search or filter using that criterion. You can, however, ask any men with the surname you’re seeking if their haplogroup is displayed.

Cousin Finder

MyHeritage has an ingenious tool called Cousin Finder that I wrote about here. Cousin Finder helps you find cousins who share common ancestors with you, regardless of whether or not you are a DNA match.

MyHeritage found 531 people in their database that share ancestors according to both their and my trees.

This list of matches doesn’t page; it scrolls, so I made a spreadsheet of the people who are relevant to my search for my brick-walled ancestor. Scrolling becomes difficult and very slow as you proceed down the list. I didn’t want to have to do this twice.

You can improve performance by using the relationship side filter. Because your ancestors match, MyHeritage knows on which “side” of your tree your common ancestor is found.

At this point, I’m interested primarily in identifying Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA candidates for a specific ancestor.

Using the Drechsel/Mehlheimer line as our example, I’ll search on my mother’s mother’s side.

We already met Patty at WikiTree, but let’s pretend we don’t know Patty. I can click on “View her tree” to see Patty’s whole tree, or I can click on “View Relationship,” which shows how we are both related to our common ancestor.

As we know, for mitochondrial DNA, any male in the line between the ancestor and the testing candidate blocks the mitochondrial DNA path. Patty inherited her mother’s mtDNA, not her father’s.

I didn’t forget about Eva Miller Ferverda either.

I searched for cousins who descended from my mother’s father’s side to find mtDNA candidates for Eva Miller and didn’t find any. But I did find an entirely unexpected bonus.

My mother’s father’s line shows all the connections on that side. While clicking through each one, I quite serendipitously discovered a mitochondrial DNA candidate for Eva Miller’s husband’s great-grandmother, Anna Elizabeth Jonker, AND, separately, a potential Camstra Y-DNA tester too. Oh, happy day!

It was only later, while working on my genealogy for Frederica Ruhle and hoping to discover where she actually lived in Pennsylvania, that I discovered that MyHeritage has put a Cousin Finder link in each ancestor’s profile.

Who doesn’t love a pleasant surprise?!

You no longer need to sift through all of your cousins on a particular side, but remember, had I not done that, I wouldn’t have found either the mitochondrial descendant of Anna Elizabeth Jonker nor the Camstra Y-DNA candidate.

At FamilySearch

FamilySearch is more challenging and is best for fleshing out trees where not much research has been done. Remember that FamilySearch has access to records that are not available at either Ancestry or MyHeritage.

FamilySearch is a one-world tree. Like all trees, it’s subject to errors, so caution is always advised.

At FamilySearch, from your profile card in the tree, locate the ancestor whose Y-DNA or mtDNA you seek.

Then click on that person. Their profile card will pop up. Click on “Tree,” then, at the top right, select Portrait.

Now you can expand their children downward. Note that the little “two people” in the top left corner of the profile card means there are multiple spouses. The only way to view all of the children is to click on that person’s placard, then select the alternate spouse.

Living people have no placeholders on this tree.

You can contact contributors who provided information on a profile in the tree.

Click on the source provider’s name to see if they are related, and click on the little tree icon to see how.

However, once a year, there’s a great way to contact interested descendants.

Relatives at RootsTech

RootsTech is the largest genealogy conference in the world, and it’s sponsored by FamilySearch.

About six weeks before RootsTech takes place each year, and for about a month after, you can participate in Relatives at RootsTech.

During that time, you can select an ancestor and see which other people who have signed up for RootsTech also descend from that ancestor. I wrote about how to do that in the article, Relatives at RootsTech Reveals Cousins and Provides DNA Candidates. I almost always find someone who descends from an ancestor whose Y-DNA or mtDNA I need for my tree.

It’s a wonderful opportunity to meet new cousins and collaborate.

At GEDmatch

GEDmatch is an autosomal DNA upload site that offers a variety of matching and display options. While they don’t attempt to calculate a haplogroup, uploaders can enter their mtDNA and Y-DNA haplogroups, if known.

GEDmatch isn’t normally a resource we think of for either Y-DNA or mtDNA, but it can be useful under some circumstances.

In the One-To-Many limited free version and the Tier 1 subscription model, you can view haplogroups if someone has entered their haplogroup name, but you can’t filter without the Tier 1 version.

I filtered for haplogroup T2b and found one person in the match list with haplogroup T2b4. I then viewed the GEDCOM that this person has also uploaded, but they do not descend from Eva Miller Ferverda’s line.

GEDmatch isn’t built for haplogroups, but sometimes, if you have a known haplogroup that isn’t terribly common, you can catch a lucky break there.

Where AM I?

OK, so where am I in all of this?

I feel like I’ve searched the corners of the earth!

I’ve primarily used two examples.

  • My own mtDNA line which is the Drechsel/Mehlheimer line that I chose because it’s a great example that I knew well.

If I had actually been searching for a testing candidate, we would easily have eliminated several possibilities. Five female lines remained as possibilities that need additional research, plus my own test if someone were actually searching.

  • Then there was Eva Miller Ferverda (1857-1939), whose partial haplogroup, T2b, was discovered at 23andMe in three matches. I was able to reconstruct their trees, confirming that this was her line, but I was unable to find any testing candidates elsewhere.

Each of the DNA testing and genealogy vendors provides a way to communicate with other users of their platform.

  • At both 23andMe and MyHeritage, you can message through their platform.
  • At FamilyTreeDNA and GEDmatch, you can email your matches.
  • At WikiTree, you send an email through their platform to the profile card manager.
  • At FamilySearch, you cannot see placeholder cards for living people, so you need to check to see if people making changes to that ancestor’s profile are related. Then check their children closest to the present day for the same information. You can message through the FamilySearch platform.
  • During Relatives at RootsTech, you can message your cousins through their platform. The great thing about these folks is that you know they are interested and engaged, because they’ve just signed up for RootsTech.

Communicating With Testing Candidates

I’m fortunate that there are three mitochondrial descendants of Eva Miller Ferverda at 23andMe, one of whom is also at FamilyTreeDNA. I will message or email all three of them individually with a short, customized message that contains:

  • How I am related to our common ancestor.
  • A question about whether they have taken the mtFull test, or any test, at FamilyTreeDNA. If they have taken any test there, it’s easy to upgrade.
  • A sentence about how FamilyTreeDNA was the original genetic genealogy founder of this industry and the only company to offer the full mtDNA and Y-DNA tests.
  • Why they can benefit from taking the mtFull test and how it can help us learn more about our common ancestor.
  • An offer for a full-sequence mitochondrial DNA testing scholarship if they have not already taken that test.
  • I ask if they are interested and provide my email in case they have questions or want to discuss further.

Depending on how much space I have for the message, there are two articles I often provide links to in case they are unfamiliar with either Y-DNA or mtDNA testing.

  1. 4 Kinds of DNA for Genetic Genealogy is a very basic article for people who might be unaware that there is any type of DNA testing other than autosomal. This is often the case with Ancestry.
  2. The article Mitochondrial DNA A-Z: A Step-by-Step Guide to Matches, Mitotree, and mtDNA Discover is an in-depth article about using mtDNA. This is a wonderfully educational how-to article, but I always hesitate before sending this one because I don’t want their eyes to glaze over.

Scholarships

I gladly and eagerly offer scholarships for both Y-DNA and mtDNA testers from lines I need to represent my ancestors.

I equate scholarships to finding a rare out-of-print book about that exact family line, with only one or two copies still in existence, and only one accessible in a rare book shop in Podunk, Idaho. I would book a flight tomorrow at 5 AM to go and pick it up in person even if I had to eat beans and hot dogs for the next six months to pay for it. If you know me, you know I’m not kidding! I’ve gone on many wonderful road trips to meet with and collect DNA samples from cousins.

A Y-DNA or mtDNA test doesn’t cost nearly as much as that excursion and is even more reliable, because we know the DNA results are accurate – assuming the tester’s genealogy is accurate, which you should verify, and no undocumented adoptions or broken lineages have occurred.

Good luck on your treasure hunt!

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FOCUS: Step 1 – Seven Solutions for DNA Matches with Absent or Shrunken Trees

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This is the second article in the FOCUS series.

You can read the first article, FOCUS – A New Series Focused on Breaking Down Brick Walls, here.

DNA matches without trees, or bare-bones shrunken trees, can be a significant roadblock whether you’re looking at autosomal, Y-DNA, or mitochondrial DNA matches. To help resolve that issue, I’ve listed seven ways you can create or expand those trees. Not every methodology works every time, but none will work if you don’t invest the effort to try them.

I’ll probably say this in every article because it bears repeating. Everything we are working with is a hint. Breadcrumbs along the way. Sometimes they lead to the next wonderful breadcrumb. Sometimes to a dead end. Sometimes they look like useful breadcrumbs, but they are red herrings and not relevant. And sometimes they are simply wrong. Do not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Also, do not think every hint is accurate, because they aren’t, and many rely upon other people.

Our goal in the FOCUS series is to accrue evidence from multiple sources, tools and methodologies that leads us to our ancestor. So let’s start with trees.

Trees, Trees, But Not Everywhere

DNA testing relies on trees to identify our common ancestors, at least with matches beyond the closest generation or two.

This is true at all vendors, which is why all of the main vendors, except 23andMe, integrate with or provide trees as part of their platform.

Because we need to work with trees for all types of DNA testing and matching, I’m going to share various ways to overcome partial trees or even no tree at all. I’m intentionally using examples from multiple vendors throughout this series.

23andMe is omitted in this article because they don’t support trees, although testers can include a link to a tree elsewhere.

GEDmatch is omitted in this article because they are not a testing company. They are a DNA upload and matching site, so everyone at GEDmatch has tested elsewhere and probably has a tree there. You can upload a GEDCOM file to GEDmatch, though, so it never hurts to check and see if your match is there too.

Some of these techniques are vendor specific, and others can be applied broadly.

What Is a Shrunken Tree?

A shrunken tree is a small tree in which your DNA match has included only a few people. Small or missing trees tend to frustrate genealogists – a lot. I remind myself that these folks maybe seeking their family or new genealogists, trying to piece their tree together themselves.

This is a tree provided by one of my matches. Their mother is deceased, but it’s recent enough that I’ve chosen to obfuscate her name as well, and it’s not relevant to the next steps.

There’s not a lot to work with here, but as it turns out, there’s enough.

Based on this tree, we have no idea where in their tree our Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA) is found, so let’s look at a few ways to indirectly expand their tree in order to find our common ancestor.

Step 1 – Check Your Own Tree

I know this sounds like a “duh” moment, but always remember to check your own tree to see if you’ve expanded that branch to include your match’a ancestors and completely forgotten about it. I maintain my primary tree on my computer with lots of notes and information that I’m not comfortable uploading to a public space. I maintain smaller public trees with a couple thousand people at both Ancestry and MyHeritage, along with a link to my ancestors at WikiTree.

If your match is a female, they may be using a married surname, so always keep that in mind. I try their complete name first. Then I search for their surname to see if it’s a “married-in” name – and cross my fingers that it’s not Smith. If they have any ancestors in their tree, I try their oldest generation next.

Step 2 – Reach Out to Your Match

Every vendor provides some way of communicating with your matches. You can either message or email, depending on the vendor, and your match may be very willing to share more about their genealogy. They may have a better tree elsewhere that they will share with you, or may know more than is in their tree.

An Ancestry survey showed that about 53% of Americans can’t name all four grandparents, and only 47% can correctly name all four. Only 4% can name all eight great-grandparents. In the Rolland tree, the tester knew more about their mother’s side, and only knew the first name of their paternal grandmother.

So while shrunken trees are exasperating, they are probably more normal that we think, and we all have to start someplace. Your match might well appreciate some help.

Step 3 – Check Other DNA Testing Sites

If your match has a real name (meaning not just initials or something indecipherable), such as Heather Jacobs (made-up name), who is predicted to be your third cousin and shares 100 cM of (unweighted) DNA at one vendor, sign on to your accounts at the other vendors and see if Heather is a match there.

You’re looking for a Heather, or maybe HJacobs or something similar, who’s approximately a 3C with roughly the same amount of shared DNA. The exact relationship prediction may not match, but it should be close, and the amount of shared DNA may not be identical either. If it varies substantially, it may not be the same person, so exercise care.

Every vendor provides the ability to search for matches by name, and if you can’t find them by name, begin paging until you reach matches at the approximate predicted relationship level. In Heather’s case, that’s third cousins. Beyond third cousins, this paging technique quickly becomes too laborious.

At Ancestry

Only one vendor, Ancestry, “downweights” your DNA with your matches, meaning that they may remove some amount of DNA that they consider “too matchy.” In my case, this is often DNA from my Acadian lines, which collectively forms pileup regions. This does NOT mean those aren’t useful, but that’s not relevant for this discussion other than to alert you that you need to check both the assigned amount of DNA and your unweighted shared DNA with a match when you’re trying to verify that the match is the same person at two vendors.

Assuming you find “HeatherJ” at Ancestry, you’ll want to verify that it’s the same person as Heather Jacobs at the other vendor.

Is your amount of shared DNA roughly the same?

Click on the relationship link to view the amount of unweighted DNA. In this case, weighted and unweighted is the same, and Heather Jacobs matches you with 100 cM at the other vendor.

Heather has a public tree here, and it’s the same size. It’s probably the same person, but check anyway.

Heather’s tree at Ancestry is exactly the same as it was at the other vendor, so this confirms it’s the same person.

There’s an important hint here, and let me emphasize the word HINT.

While Heather’s actual 15-person tree does NOT extend to our common ancestor, Ancestry has pieced together other trees that include and extend beyond her ancestors to show my (purported) common ancestor with Heather. Click on Common Ancestor, which takes you to ThruLines.

This new version of ThruLines has now replaced the older version. Unfortunately it does not show Heather’s path back to our common ancestor, Hiram Bauke Ferverda.

Click on “View all ancestors” in the upper left-hand corner.

Click on any image to enlarge

After clicking on “View all ancestors,” click on Hiram Bauke Ferverda to see the DNA matches who descend from him. Despite what Ancestry provided under my “Common ancestor” with Heather, she isn’t shown anyplace here. This could be a bug, given that I later confirmed this common ancestor using other techniques.

Regardless of the problem, this IS a hint, so don’t disregard it entirely. Just keep your “skeptic” hat handy and wear it liberally. You’ll need to use Ancestry searches and hints, including possibly Quick and Dirty Trees, to piece together the possibilities.

Make a note on Heather’s match at Ancestry so that you know what you found this time through. We’re not done with Heather. Move on to another vendor to see if Heather has tested and has a better tree elsewhere. We’re gathering evidence.

At MyHeritage

Heather is not at MyHeritage, so I’ll use a different example.

Let’s look for Cathy, a 3C match who has no tree at another vendor. I found her at MyHeritage with the same first and last name and approximately the same amount of shared DNA, so I’m confident it’s the same person.

Fortunately, at MyHeritage, Cathy has a tree, which is the first step, of course, but no common ancestor is shown in her tree.

MyHeritage has a wonderful feature called Theory of Family Relativity which are often based on “Smart Matches.” Click on “View theory.”

Click to enlarge

MyHeritage has found five possible paths to a common ancestor based on multiple documents and trees. In this case, Surrilda Claxton in my tree is the same person as Surelda Clarkson in Cathy’s tree, and MyHeritage made that connection correctly.

I confirmed this Theory at MyHeritage as accurate, and now I know how Cathy at the other vendor with no tree is related to me. I made a note about Cathy at MyHeritage on my match with Cathy at the other vendor too about our common ancestor AND where Cathy’s tree can be found. Add Cathy to her proper place in your trees.

Step 4 – Sleuth at the Same Vendor

At FamilyTreeDNA, when I find a match with no tree, I do two things.

Looking at Patricia’s profile, I immediately see that she has been assigned to the maternal side of my tree. I’ve linked other known matches which allows FamilyTreeDNA to use triangulation to assign Patricia to the proper side.

Then, I notice that even though Patricia doesn’t have a tree, she has provided her ancestral surnames.

Clicking on “View Details,” I can see if any of them match my surnames, or I can view all of her surnames.

Given that this is my mother’s side, these shared surnames give me an idea of a shared lineage.

Next, look for your closest shared match WITH a tree. Clicking on the two little people at far right displays your shared matches which are labeled “in common with.”

I share 122 matches in common with with Patricia, and our closest shared match, other than my mother who is not shown here, is Dennis. Dennis happens to be a known relative, which is why he already has a note.

But for purposes of this exercise, let’s say that I haven’t already figured out how Dennis and I are related. Viewing Dennis’s tree, I see that our common ancestors are Anthony (Antoine) Lore and Rachel Levina Hill. Hmmm, Hill is on Patricia’s list of surnames.

Sleuthing at the same vendor is MUCH EASIER when your matches have at least a couple of generations in a small tree. Having no tree is the most difficult situation at every vendor, but there are multiple ways to begin building a tree for your DNA match, or to expand a shrunken tree.

Step 5 – Google Is Your Friend

Google is your friend. Google cannot reach behind paywalled sites, so you won’t find records other than records from free indexes at Ancestry or MyHeritage in Google searches, but you will find information about people from other genealogy sites.

Let’s go back to Rolland Robison who died in 1963 and his wife, Chloe. And let’s also consider that his surname is often spelled RobiNson. We know from our match’s tree that Rolland’s wife’s first name is Chloe.

Look closely at the search box in the image below. By structuring the query as “rolland robison died 1963 wife chloe”, we combine a full name, a specific vital event year, and a spouse’s first name. This gives Google just enough precise detail to hopefully filter out (most) noise.

That’s interesting. It looks like Rolland can be spelled two ways too.

Not only is there an article (yes, I wrote about this previously), BUT there’s also an obituary and estate distribution in a local newspaper that I have never seen before.

Rolland’s wife’s birth surname is given in his obituary, even though her first name is misspelled. This is the link I need to establish our common ancestor, because Chloe is my grandfather’s sister.

Google can provide you with important links to information and articles that are not yet in genealogical databases, such as:

  • Facebook accounts for individuals: Useful for finding the tester, relatives or family connections.
  • Facebook groups and pages: Forums that contain local historical information and shared community memories.
  • LinkedIn & Instagram accounts: Social footprints that often reveal professional histories, geographic locations, and birth surnames.
  • Mentions elsewhere: Local newspaper archives, digital press releases, and published legal notices regarding estate partitions or land records.
  • Obituaries: Printed family notices that explicitly list surviving family names and relationships along with the Legacy.com tribute archives.
  • Public websites & genealogy blogs: Independent sites where genealogists sometimes publish deep-dive ancestral lineages. Always verify.

Google also provides an easy way to find free resources in public databases without having to search each one individually, including:

  • Collaborative family trees: WikiTree, FamilySearch, and Geni trees.
  • Cemetery registries: FindAGrave and BillionGraves.
  • Digital libraries: Internet Archive and Google Books, which hold a vast assortment of historical information like out-of-print town and county histories.
  • Open-Access portals: The Library of Congress (LOC) and the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), which pulls photos, maps, and civic documents from libraries across the US.
  • Volunteer projects: Regional repositories like GenWeb.
  • Directories: Local alumni directories and digitized historical yearbooks.

Pro Tip: Resurrecting Old RootsWeb and Genealogy.com Breadcrumbs

RootsWeb was a wonderful resource for genealogists until Ancestry began systematically dismantling it in 2023.

While Google is fantastic at finding obscure text, it will occasionally point you to an old, broken RootsWeb link. Because Ancestry has frozen or removed much of the old platform, don’t let that 404 error stop you in your tracks. Copy the dead URL from Google and paste it into the Internet Archive Wayback Machine where you can sometimes resurrect the exact information you need!

The same methodology applies to the old message board, Genealogy.com.

Step 6 – Search Old Emails and Files On Your Own Computer

I know this probably sounds either ridiculous or incredibly obvious, but if you’re a typical genealogist, you probably have a quarter century of emails on your computer, not to mention reams of photos that you saved because someone gave them to you and you “might need them someday.”

I’ve never thought of myself as the family archivist, but I clearly must be, which is another name for the family packrat. Long live the packrats.

I’ve learned that I need to search all of my email folders for the names in someone’s shrunken tree. I’ve been shocked at what I’ve found there.

Don’t just search for full names. For example, Rolland Robison or Chloe Ferverda. Search for the names individually too. So, Rolland, Roland, Robison, Robinson, and Chloe. I didn’t know Chloe was a Ferverda yet when I was initially searching for her identity.

A middle-of-the-night insomnia-induced epiphany struck – “search your emails.” Who needs sleep? It’s overrated! I hopped right up, searched my emails and my computer and found even more.

As it turns out, I attended a Ferverda family reunion in 2010 where I only knew two people. Thankfully, cousin Cheryl thought to invite me, because someone brought an old photo album AND an old Ferverda family Bible. I took photos of everything in the album even though I had no idea who most of those people were and neither did the album’s owner.

Many photos had no surnames at all, or they were recorded as Mr. and Mrs. SoAndSo.

Here are “Chloe and Rolland” as they were named in the photo, with no last name or additional information.

Here are Mr and Mrs. Rolland Vincent Robison. I carelessly saved this one as Rolland RobiNson. My bad.

A search for just “Rolland” found both, which is exactly why you need to search creatively.

Finding those initially still wouldn’t have told me who they were, but I would have at least had some family context, given that a Ferverda descendant brought the album to the Ferverda reunion.

However, this article about Rolland and Chloe’s 50th wedding anniversary from that same album would have provided that missing context.

My emails revealed now-deceased cousin Cheryl referring to Aunt Chloey, but with nothing else to identify her. A search for simply “Chloe” found Cheryl’s emails.

More tidbits of evidence.

I did a very poor job of saving these images with useful names because they weren’t relevant at the time, although I did store them in a “Ferverda Reunion” folder. Now, I’m going to attach them to Chloe and Rolland’s profiles in my tree at both Ancestry and MyHeritage to make sure they don’t disappear forever.

I’m also going to send them to my match with the abbreviated tree. As Rolland and Chloe’s grandchild, if they don’t have these pictures, I’m positive they will want them.

I’m sure you’ve noticed that I got VERY squirreled during this process, but utilizing all of our resources is exactly how we make discoveries – and sometimes that includes chasing squirrels.

This is also why our research journals are important – so we don’t chase the same squirrel over and over.

Step 7 – Quick and Dirty Trees

I used the Robison example in an earlier article discussing how to build a “quick and dirty” tree. I use quick and dirty trees often because it’s the easiest way to keep track of informational tidbits from different places, including multiple vendors, during the research process.

I’ll say it again here. Quick and dirty trees aren’t meant to be public. They aren’t gospel. They are a structure for you to work through the various hints provided and to evaluate them to see if they are of sufficient quality for you to identify a common ancestor with a DNA tester who provided a minimal tree.

You can read about these investigative workbenches in the article, What is a Quick and Dirty Tree, and When Might I Need One?

What’s Next?

Have you decided which of your brick walls you’re going to focus on? Last week’s article discussed some of the criteria you might want to consider and how to prepare.

Select your ancestor, because next week, we’re going to begin using a variety of tools and techniques to track that ancestor. Bit by bit, we’re going to gather evidence that will hopefully lead to a breakthrough.

2025 Genetic Genealogy Retrospective: Wow – What a Year!

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2025 has been quite a year in genetic genealogy. Genetic genealogy, per se, really isn’t a separate “thing” anymore. DNA testing is now an integral part of genealogy, with the potential to answer questions that nothing else can!

The 76 articles I wrote in 2025 fall into multiple categories and focus on different topics based on what was happening in the industry.

From my perspective, here are the most notable announcements and trends in genetic genealogy, and genealogy more broadly.

#1 for 2025 – Mitochondrial DNA: The Million Mito Project Released the New Mitotree, Updates, and mtDNA Discover

The biggest genealogy news items this year, both industry-wide and genealogy-changing are definitely the release of the new Mitotree, plus two tree updates. But that’s not all.

In addition, full sequence mitochondrial DNA testers received new Mitotree haplogroups, if appropriate, and everyone received a haplotype – a new feature. Along with Mitotree, FamilyTreeDNA introduced mtDNA Discover which provides 13 individual reports based on your haplogroup and matches.

It’s no wonder that mitochondrial DNA articles led the pack with the most views based on the eleven articles about that topic. If you haven’t yet tested your mitochondrial DNA at FamilyTreeDNA, there’s no better time! You never know what you’re going to discover and the more testers, the more matches for everyone.

You don’t know what you don’t know, and you’ll never know if you don’t test. Remember, mitochondrial DNA is for both males and females and tests your mother’s direct matrilineal line (mother to mother to mother, etc.) – reaching beyond known surnames.  Click here to order or upgrade.

#2 – MyHeritage Low Pass Whole Genome Sequence Test Charges into the Future

Another big hitter is the new MyHeritage low-pass whole genome test (WGS) test. It’s new and innovative, but we haven’t seen comparative results yet.

My results from the new low-pass whole genome test just came back, and I haven’t had the opportunity to review them yet, as compared to the earlier tests. That said, I do have roughly the same number of matches, but I need to determine if they are the same matches, and how well they track. I’ll be working on that review soon.

The new whole genome test may be more about future proofing and preparedness than additional current benefit – but we will see. I definately wanted to take the whole genome test so I can receive and benefit from whatever new is coming down the pike.

MyHeritage allows you to maintain multiple DNA tests on your account, so the new whole genome won’t “replace” your older or uploaded test. That way, you can easily compare the results of the whole genome against any DNA test that you curently have at MyHeritage.

Click here to order the new test.

#3 – 23andMe Experiences Problems

On a less positive note, but still quite newsworthy is the bankruptcy of 23andMe and subsequent repurchase of 23andMe by the original founder after setting up a new nonprofit. I have real mixed feelings about this topic. However, 23andMe was really never about genealogy, and now, matching segment information is no longer available. Those searching for unknown parents or family may want to test there if they are unsuccessful elsewhere.

Best Genealogy Tool

The FamilySearch full text search continues to have a HUGE impact for genealogists. This tool is not one-and-done, but provides increasing amounts of rich information as more records are added to the “fully scanned” collection. If you haven’t tried it, please do. It’s a game-changer and continues to improve.

A Cautionary Word About AI – Artificial Intelligence

AI is such a hot topic right now that I feel it needs to be included.

The FamilySearch full text search uses a form of AI. However, you’ll quickly notice that it can’t read everything, gets words and names wrong, and if you actually need to fully depend on it for accuracy, you cannot. (That said, it’s still an amazing tool, and I’m not picking on FamilySearch.)

Aside from FamilySearch, AI in its current form is both wonderful and terrible. I’ll be writing about AI in the new year, but for now, don’t ever rely on AI for anything that you can’t verity. It’s your assistant, not an expert, no matter how insistent it is. Never trust and always verify.

This is ESPECIALLY TRUE WHEN RELATED TO GENETICS and genetic related topics. I can’t even begin to tell you how very wrong it has been, and how much people fall in love with inaccurate results. No, just no – at least for now.

You need to know your AI tool, your skill set, your understanding of AI broadly, the tool’s limitations, and yours, and that’s all before verifying the actual AI results. If you want to educate yourself, and everyone should, treat yourself to anything, anyplace by either Mark Thompson or Steve Little, the dynamic AI duo. They offer YouTube videos and classes in a wide variety of places – but keep in mind that AI tools and technology literally change every few weeks.

AI is, indeed, a specialty all unto itself, much like genetic genealogy. And right now, it’s not soup yet, but it is cooking.

Tried and True Genetic Genealogy Staples – DNAPrint and Genetic Affairs

I haven’t written about either one this year, but I use both DNAPainter and Genetic Affairs regularly.

I consistently paint segments from matches at both MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA, and GEDmatch that are newly identified to an ancestor or ancestral couple at DNAPainter.

Unfortunately, neither Ancestry nor 23andMe provide matching cM location information for your matches (chromosome browser), but you may find some people who have tested at those companies at both FamilyTreeDNA and GEDmatch if they have uploaded to either of those vendors. Both vendors provide segment information and a Chromosome Browser, enabling you to paint that information to DNAPainter when you can identify your common ancestor.

MyHeritage also provides a Chromosome Browser, but unfortunately, no longer accepts uploads from any other vendor. You can paint segments from MyHeritage, but no longer upload DNA files to MyHeritage.

Thanks to DNAPainter, I have 90% of my segments identified to specific ancestors – which is actually rather remarkable given that my mother’s grandfather was a Dutch immigrant, and her great-grandparents on her other side were German immigrants, meaning we don’t have many matches on either of those lines.

Genetic Affairs continues to develop new, advanced clustering tools, one of which I’ll be reviewing soon.

Major Vendor Releases

Aside from what’s listed above, most of the major vendors released new features.

MyHeritage released a VERY COOL new tool called Cousin Finder that finds your relatives in the MyHeritage database, whether they match you on a DNA test, or not. They may not have even taken a DNA test. Cousin Finder identifies your common ancestor and shows your relationships. It’s a wonderful way to initiate communications, discuss your common ancestors, and ask about DNA testing.

Of my 378 Cousin Finder matches, only 23 (about 6%) are on my DNA match list, so that leaves 355 people to message, several of whom represent Y-DNA and mtDNA lines I don’t have. You can bet I’ll be offering testing scholarships.

Additionally, MyHeritage released a new ethnicity version.

FamilyTreeDNA, in addition to the new Mitotree, Discover, and associated features, released a new match matrix so you can see if and how selected matches are related to each other in a grid format. In other words, you can create your own cluster.

A new built-in “Share” feature blurs private information to make sharing easier both on the website and in Discover.

Discover improvements include thousands of new Y-DNA and mtDNA tree branches, plus thousands of new Ancient DNA samples. Discover is evergreen, so once you’ve taken that Big Y-700 test or the mitochondrial DNA test, your learning never stops as more content is added.

Tree integration with WikiTree is super-easy and means you don’t have to choose between trees. You can choose to retain your archived tree at FamilyTreeDNA, or move your tree to MyHeritage, PLUS link yourself to your family at WikiTree.

Ancestry released match clustering and a new beta pedigree view of ThruLines, but that’s back in the shop for more work. I’d expect to see it rereleased in 2026.

Conferences

RootsTech is the granddaddy of genealogy conferences, and it’s always fun to attend and write about the experience. Many vendors release new tools or products during the conference.

The ECGGC (East Coast Genetic Genealogy Conference), held in the fall, is the only conference that focuses entirely on genetic genealogy, new tools, how to use existing tools, and more. The 2025 conference was virtual and provided a great deal of focused content. Attendees particularly appreciate the deep dive in a particular topic presented in DNA Academy.

I’ll be at RootsTech in 2026, will write about that soon, and hope to see you there.

Concepts, Techniques and Plain Old Genealogy

In the past, my Concepts series and genealogy “how to” articles have been very popular, so, in 2025, I penned a half-dozen articles focusing on frequently asked questions about relationships and DNA.

For example, how does one go about finding DNA testing candidates? The number of options may surprise you and includes both Cousin Finder and Relatives at RootsTech.

By testing ONE PERSON for either Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA that represents an ancestor, you actually receive information about that entire lineage of ancestors. So, on my Estes line, by locating an Estes male from my line to test, I received relevant information for every Estes male in my line, back to and beyond the progenitor.

Eventually, we hit a brick wall in every line, and those tools are the perfect way to break through those brick walls.

Other articles discuss things like how to use Discover’s Ancient Connections, and the difference between half and full relationships, both in your tree and genetically. Plus, what does a cousin “once removed” mean anyway? And why do I care?

Another question I receive is how far back, based on the shared amount of DNA, should I look in my matches’ trees for our common ancestor? In other words, how many generations back should I click? That article was fun and produced some unexpected results.

Memorial Articles

Because we are part of a community, I write memorial articles when one of our friends passes on. This year, sadly, Schelly Talalay Dardashti, well-known Jewish genealogist, and another very close friend joined the ancestors, so I’ve recognized the best in both of their lives which constitutes their legacy.

Be the Storyteller

Last, but not least, I wrote about my ancestors in the “52 Ancestors” series, which launched several years ago with Amy Johnson Crow’s challenge to write about one ancestor per week. She hosts this every year, and you can join (free) now.

I’m now on ancestor #467, so yes, it’s addictive, but it’s also AMAZING how many wonderful cousins I’ve met who have information that I did not. Not only that, but after publishing about an ancestor, I’ve discovered that I’m related to people I’ve known for years. We were SOOOooo excited!

I’ve been writing about the lives of my ancestors for several years now, and the articles include attempts to identify Y-DNA and mtDNA testers for each ancestor, where appropriate. There’s so much to learn that can’t be revealed any other way.

Plus, people seem to like the “mystery” and “short story” aspect, and I salt each story with the history of the region and relevant historical events of the timeframe. You might find your ancestors here too, or other helpful information.

Find a way to share about your ancestors!

Do You Have Suggestions for 2026 Topics?

Do you have suggestions or requests for article topics in 2026? If so, please comment on this article and let me know.

Check Out the 2025 List

Here’s the list of the 2025 articles. Did you miss something fun? Enjoy!

  Title Category Date Link
1 Welcome to 2025 – Opportunities and New Genetic Genealogy Articles Welcome, general 1-2-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/01/02/welcome-to-2025-opportunities-and-new-genetic-genealogy-articles/
2 Anne Doucet (1713-1791), Oceans, Rivers, and Perseverance – 52 Ancestors #438 52 Ancestors 1-4-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/01/04/anne-doucet-1713-1791-oceans-rivers-and-perseverance-52-ancestors-438/
3 Register for RootsTech 2025 Now RootsTech 1-16-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/01/16/register-for-rootstech-2025-now/
4 What IS the McNeil Family History, by George Franklin McNeil – 52 Ancestors #439 52 Ancestors 1-19-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/01/20/what-is-the-mcneil-family-history-by-george-franklin-mcneil-52-ancestors-439/
5 Jean Garceau dit Tranchemontagne (c1785-1711), Soldier from Saint Marseault – 52 Ancestors #440 52 Ancestors 1-29-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/01/29/jean-garceau-dit-tranchemontagne-c1785-1711-soldier-from-saint-marseault-52-ancestors-440/
6 Memories Resurface When the Old Family Home Gets a Facelift Genealogy 2-3-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/02/03/memories-resurface-when-the-old-family-home-gets-a-facelift/
7 MyHeritage Introduces Ethnicity v2.5 MyHeritage 2-6-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/02/06/myheritage-introduces-ethnicity-v2-5/
8 Relatives at RootsTech Reveals Cousins and Provides DNA Candidates RootsTech, techniques 2-8-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/02/08/relatives-at-rootstech-reveals-cousins-and-provides-dna-candidates/
9 FamilyTreeDNA’s New Matrix Shows How Your Matches Are Related to Each Other FamilyTreeDNA 2-12-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/02/12/familytreednas-new-matrix-shows-how-your-matches-are-related-to-each-other/
10 René Doucet (c1680-c1731), Lifetime of Incessant Upheaval – 52 Ancestors #441 52 Ancestors 2-15-2024 https://dna-explained.com/2025/02/16/rene-doucet-c1680-c1731-lifetime-of-incessant-upheaval-52-ancestors-441/
11 Lineages Versus Ancestors – How to Find and Leverage Yours Techniques 2-23-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/02/23/lineages-versus-ancestors-how-to-find-and-leverage-yours/
12 Mitotree is Born Mitochondrial DNA 2-25-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/02/25/mitotree-is-born/
13 RootsTech 2025 – The Year of Discover and the New Mitotree RootsTech, Mitochondrial DNA 3-14-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/03/15/rootstech-2025-the-year-of-discover-and-the-new-mitotree/
14 Pierre Doucet (c1621-1713), Walking History Book Lived to Nearly 100 – 52 Ancestors #442 3-16-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/03/16/pierre-doucet-c1621-1713-walking-history-book-lived-to-nearly-!100-52-ancestors-442/
15 Welcome to the New FamilyTreeDNA mtDNA Group Mitochondrial DNA 3-17-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/03/17/welcome-to-the-new-familytreedna-mtdna-group/
16 23andMe Files for Bankruptcy – What You Need to Know! 23andMe 3-24-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/03/25/23andme-files-for-bankruptcy-what-you-need-to-know/
17 New “Share” Features at FamilyTreeDNA Blur Match Information and Make Sharing Easy FamilyTreeDNA 4-1-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/04/01/new-share-features-at-familytreedna-blur-match-information-and-make-sharing-easy/
18 The Chauvet Cave: Trip Back in Time with Prehistoric European Humans – Are We Related? History, DNA 4-6-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/04/06/the-chauvet-cave-trip-back-in-time-with-prehistoric-european-humans-are-we-related/
19 DNA for Native American Genealogy Webinar & Companion Book Native American 4-8-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/04/08/dna-for-native-american-genealogy-webinar-companion-book/
20 Marie Levron (c1686-1727), Tragedy from Cradle to Grave – 52 Ancestors #443 52 Ancestors 4-14-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/04/14/marie-levron-c1686-1727-tragedy-from-cradle-to-grave-52-ancestors-443/
21 Mitochondrial DNA: What is a Haplotype Cluster and How Do I Find and Use Mine Mitochondrial DNA 4-14-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/04/14/mitochondrial-dna-what-is-a-haplotype-cluster-and-how-do-i-find-and-use-mine/
22 New Mitotree Haplogroups and How to Utilize Them for Genealogy Mitochondrial DNA 4-23-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/04/23/new-mitotree-haplogroups-and-how-to-utilize-them-for-genealogy/
23 Sir Francois Levron dit Nantois(c1651-1714), and Acadia’s Pirate – 52 Ancestors #444 52 Ancestors 4-26-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/04/27/sir-francois-levron-dit-nantois-c1651-1714-and-acadias-pirate-52-ancestors-444/
24 Catherine Savoie (c1661-c1722/25), Whispered Threads Weave a Tapestry of Life – 52 Ancestors #445 52 Ancestors 5-4-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/05/04/catherine-savoie-c1661-c1722-5-whispered-threads-weave-a-tapestry-of-life-52-ancestors-445/
25 Discover’s Ancient Connections – How Are You Related? Discover, Ancient DNA 5-8-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/05/08/discovers-ancient-connections-how-are-you-related/
26 Mother’s Day and Legacies 52 Ancestors, Genealogy 5-10-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/05/11/mothers-day-and-legacies/
27 The Mystery of the Blue Fugates and Smiths: A Study in Blue Genes and Pedigree Collapse Genetics, Genealogy 5-18-1015 https://dna-explained.com/2025/05/19/the-mystery-of-the-blue-fugates-and-smiths-a-study-in-blue-genes-and-pedigree-collapse/
28 Regeneron Wins Bid for Bankrupt 23andMe – Wedding Planned 23andMe 5-19-2023 https://dna-explained.com/2025/05/19/regeneron-wins-bid-for-bankrupt-23andme-wedding-planned/
29 Francois Savoie’s Homestead Rediscovered – 52 Ancestors #446 52 Ancestors 5-24-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/05/24/francois-savoies-homestead-rediscovered-52-ancestors-446/
30 Memorial Day – Some Gave All Memorial 5-25-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/05/25/memorial-day-some-gave-all/
31 Mitotree Webinar – What It Is, How We Did It, and What Mitotree Means to You Mitochondrial DNA 6-4-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/06/04/mitotree-webinar-what-it-is-how-we-did-it-and-what-mitotree-means-to-you/
32 Catherine LeJeune (c1633-1671/1686), Meet Your Grandchildren – 52 Ancestors #447 52 Ancestors 6-7-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/06/07/catherine-lejeune-c1633-1671-1686-meet-your-grandchildren-52-ancestors-447/
33 Mitotree Q&A for Everyone Mitochondrial DNA 6-11-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/06/11/mitotree-qa-for-everyone/
34 Father’s Day: Bravery and Love 52 Ancestors, Genealogy 6-14-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/06/14/fathers-day-bravery-and-love/
35 Francoise Bourgeois (c1659-1693/1697), High Drama in Beaubassin and Terror at Port Royal – 52 Ancestors #448 52 Ancestors 6-16-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/06/16/francoise-bourgeois-c1659-1693-97-high-drama-in-beaubassin-and-terror-at-port-royal-52-ancestors-448/
36 Requesting Suggestions for RootsTech 2026 Topics RootsTech 6-18-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/06/18/requesting-suggestions-for-rootstech-2026-topics/
37 FamilyTreeDNA and WikiTree Collaboration – In Two Easy Steps!! FamilyTreeDNA, WikiTree 6-25-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/06/25/familytreedna-and-wikitree-collaboration-in-two-easy-steps/
38 Jacques Bourgeois (c1620-c1700), Surgeon of Port Royal – 52 Ancestors #449 52 Ancestors 7-1-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/07/01/jacques-bourgeois-c1620-c1700-surgeon-of-port-royal-52-ancestors-449/
39 TTAM, a Nonprofit Formed by 23andMe’s Founder Now Plans to Buy 23andMe 23andMe 7-1-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/07/01/ttam-a-nonprofit-formed-by-23andmes-founder-now-plans-to-buy-23andme/
40 Jacques Bourgeois: Complex Acadian, Founder of Beaubassin – 52 Ancestors #450 52 Ancestors 7-6-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/07/06/jacques-bourgeois-complex-acadian-founder-of-beaubassin-52-ancestors-450/
41 How to Use Ancestry’s New Match Clusters and What They Mean Ancestry 7-10-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/07/10/how-to-use-ancestrys-new-match-clusters-and-what-they-mean/
42 Walk with Your Ancestors: Peace, Light and Healing in an Abandoned Medieval Village History 7-21-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/07/21/walk-with-your-ancestors-peace-light-and-healing-in-an-abandoned-medieval-village/
43 Jeanne Trahan (c1629-c1699), Life in Chinon, La Heve, Port Royal, and Beaubassin – 52 Ancestors #451 52 Ancestors 8-2-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/07/28/jeanne-trahan-c1629-c1699-life-in-chinon-la-heve-port-royal-and-beaubassin-52-ancestors-451/
44 Wherefore Art Thou, Oh Ancestor – New Generation Tree Chart Suggests Where to Look in Your Matches’ Trees Techniques, Genetics, Genealogy 8-2-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/08/02/wherefore-art-thou-oh-ancestor-new-generation-tree-chart-suggests-where-to-look-in-your-matches-trees/
45 Guillaume Trahan (c1601-1625), More Than Meets the Eye – 52 Ancestors #452 52 Ancestors 8-13-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/08/13/guillaume-trahan-c1601-c1684-more-than-meets-the-eye-52-ancestor-452/ 
46 The East Coast Genetic Genealogy Conference – ECGGC – Register Now for the Best of the Best ECGGC Conference 8-14-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/08/14/the-east-coast-genetic-genealogy-conference-ecggc-register-now-for-the-best-of-the-best/
47 Schelly Talalay Dardashti – May Her Memory Be a Blessing Memorial 8-17-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/08/17/schelly-talalay-dardashti-may-her-memory-be-a-blessing/
48 Francoise Corbineau (c1609-c1665), Bride in Chinon, Founder of Acadia – 52 Ancestors #453 52 Ancestors 8-25-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/08/23/francoise-corbineau-c1609-c1665-bride-in-chinon-founder-of-acadia-52-ancestors-453/
49 Nicolas Trahan (c1570->1632), Life in the Heart of French Wine Country – 52 Ancestors #454 52 Ancestors 8-31-2015 https://dna-explained.com/2025/08/31/nicolas-trahan-c1570-1632-life-in-the-heart-of-french-wine-country-52-ancestors-454/
50 Mitochondrial DNA A-Z: A Step-by-Step Guide to Matches, Mitotree, and mtDNA Discover Mitochondrial DNA, Discover, Genealogy, Techniques 10-2-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/09/02/mitochondrial-dna-a-z-a-step-by-step-guide-to-matches-mitotree-and-mtdna-discover/
51 Renée Desloges (c1570-1627/1632), Fragments of Life in Montreuil-Bellay – 52 Ancestors #454 (this is actually 455) 52 Ancestors 9-6-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/09/06/renee-desloges-c1570-1627-1632-fragments-of-life-in-montreuil-bellay-52-ancestors-454/
52 Best Mitochondrial DNA Presentation EVER – You’re Invited to DNA Academy!! Mitochondrial DNA 9-9-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/09/09/best-mitochondrial-dna-presentation-ever-youre-invited-to-dna-academy/
53 Unfillable Shoes Memorial – Douglas Rhodenbaugh 9-14-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/09/14/unfillable-shoes/
54 Concepts: What Does a Cousin “Once Removed” Mean? Concepts, Genealogy 9-24-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/09/24/concepts-what-does-a-cousin-once-removed-mean/
55 Daniel Vannoy (1752-after 1820), “Lived in the Boundary of the Cherokee Indians” – Say What??? 52 Ancestors 9-29-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/09/29/daniel-vannoy-1752-after-1820-lived-in-the-boundary-of-the-cherokee-indians-say-what/
56 Daniel Vannoy and the Strange Case of the Two Sarahs – 52 Ancestors #457 52 Ancestors 10-5-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/10/06/daniel-vannoy-and-the-strange-case-of-the-two-sarahs-52-ancestors-457/
57 Cousin Finder – MyHeritage’s Innovative New Tool Finds Your Relatives MyHeritage 10-9-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/10/09/cousin-finder-myheritages-innovative-new-tool-finds-your-relatives/
58 Sarah Hickerson Vannoy (c1761 – after 1826), Threw More than Shade – 52 Ancestors #458 52 Ancestors https://dna-explained.com/2025/10/13/sarah-hickerson-vannoy-c1761-after-1826-threw-more-than-shade-52-ancestors-458/
59 MyHeritage Introduces a Low-Pass Whole Genome Autosomal DNA Test & Why It Matters MyHeritage 10-14-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/10/14/myheritage-introduces-a-low-pass-whole-genome-autosomal-dna-test-why-it-matters/
60 Henriette Pelletret (c1640 – before 1694), Life Death in the Shadow of the Fort – 52 Ancestors #459 52 Ancestors 10-21-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/10/21/henriette-pelletret-c1640-before-1694-life-and-death-in-the-shadow-of-the-fort-52-ancestor-459/
61 Cheat Sheet: Mitochondrial Matches, Haplotype Clusters, and Haplogroups Mitochondrial DNA 10-22-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/10/22/cheat-sheet-mitochondrial-matches-haplotype-clusters-and-haplogroups/
62 Simon Pelletret (1610-1642/1645): A Walk Through Port Royal – 52 Ancestors #460 52 Ancestors 10-27-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/10/27/simon-pelletret-c1610-1642-1645-a-walk-through-port-royal-52-ancestors-460/
63 Perrine Bourg (c1626-1693/1698): Phoenix Rising from the Ashes – 52 Ancestors #461 52 Ancestors 11-2-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/11/02/perrine-bourg-c1626-1693-1698-phoenix-rising-from-the-ashes-52-ancestors-461/
64 Concepts: What is a Half Relationships, Life Half First Cousins, Anyway? Concepts, Genealogy 11-4-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/11/04/concepts-what-is-a-half-relationship-like-half-first-cousins-anyway/
65 Marie Broussard (1686-after 1752), Life Across the River from Port Royal – 52 Ancestors #462 52 Ancestors 11-10-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/11/10/marie-broussard-1686-after-1752-life-across-the-river-from-port-royal-52-ancestors-462/
66 Francois Broussard (1653-1716), Intractable Acadian – 52 Ancestors #463 52 Ancestors 11-22-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/11/22/francois-broussard-1653-1716-intractable-acadian-52-ancestors-463/
67 Mitotree Sprouts 12,773 New Branches and Includes Ancient DNA Mitochondrial DNA 11-24-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/11/24/mitotree-sprouts-12773-new-branches-and-includes-ancient-dna/
68 Catherine Richard (c1663 – after 1714), Mother of Beausoleil, Acadian Freedom Fighters – 52 Ancestors #464 52 Ancestors 11-29-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/11/29/catherine-richard-c1663-after-1714-mother-of-beausoleil-acadian-freedom-fighters-52-ancestors-464/
69 Ancestry’s ThruLines Has a New Pedigree View Ancestry 12-2-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/12/03/ancestrys-thrulines-has-a-new-pedigree-view/
70 Ancestry Reverts ThruLines to the Original View Ancestry 12-6-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/12/06/ancestry-reverts-thrulines-to-the-original-view/
71 Michel Richard (c1630-1686/1689), Carefree Acadian – 52 Ancestors #465 52 Ancestors 12-7-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/12/08/michel-richard-dit-sansoucy-c1630-1686-1689-carefree-acadian-52-ancestors-465/ 
72 Mitochondrial DNA: How Do I Know if I’m a Candidate to Receive a New Haplogroup? Mitochondrial DNA 12-9-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/12/09/mitochondrial-dna-how-do-i-know-if-im-a-candidate-to-receive-a-new-haplogroup/
73 Heavens Ablaze: the 1833 Leonid Meteor Storm and Your Ancestors History, Genealogy 12-15-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/12/15/heavens-ablaze-the-1833-leonid-meteor-storm-and-your-ancestors/
74 Madelaine Blanchard (c1643 – 1678/1683), Gone Too Soon – 52 Ancestors #466 52 Ancestors 12-20-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/12/20/madelaine-blanchard-c1643-1678-1683-gone-too-soon-52-ancestors-466/
75 Soar Inspiration 12-24-2025 https://dna-explained.com/2025/12/24/soar/

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Six Ways to Figure Out How We’re Related

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In my latest Webinar, Six Ways to Figure Out How We’re Related, I discuss the various tools from Ancestry, FamilyTreeDNA, MyHeritage, and 23andMe – plus clusters from Genetic Affairs and the amazing DNAPainter.

This webinar lives in the Legacy Family Tree Webinar library, but as part of the “webtember” lineup, you can view it for free through the end of September.

It’s always exciting to discover a new match at one of the DNA testing companies, which, of course, begs the question of how you’re related.

So, what are the six ways to figure out how you’re related, and how do you use them?

Come along for a step-by-step guide!

Shared Matches

We begin with how each vendor handles shared matches, what that feature is called, where to find the information, and how to interpret what they are telling you.

23andMe goes a step further and creates a genetic tree, of sorts, although that functionality has changed since their breach last October.

Bucketing and Sides

Two vendors go a step further and provide unique tools to divide your matches maternally and paternally.

FamilyTreeDNA buckets your matches maternally and paternally (or both) based on matches you link to their profile cards in your tree. FamilyTreeDNA then uses your linked matches to triangulate with other matches and assign your matches accordingly, providing a maternal and paternal match list. Bucketing, also known as Family Matching, is one of my favorite tools.

Note that linking matches at FamilyTreeDNA requires that you have transferred your tree to MyHeritage. I wrote about that and provided instructions here and here, and produced a complimentary webinar, too.

Ancestry also divides your matches by parent, but they use a different technique based on their Sideview technology and either ethnicity or shared matches.

Surnames and Locations

Surnames and locations, either separately or together, provide HUGE hints!

MyHeritage provides a nice summary for each of your matches that includes ancestral surnames, a map of locations in common, and “Smart Matches” which shows you people in common in both of your trees. There are several ways to use these tools.

FamilyTreeDNA also provides a list of surnames. You can view either the surnames in common with a match, or all of their ancestral surnames, with locations if provided. The tester enters these surnames, and we review how to complete that step.

Ancestry also provides shared surnames, with clickable links to the number of people in your matches tree with that surname, plus common locations.

X-DNA

X-DNA is probably the most underutilized DNA matching tool. While each of the vendors actually test the X chromosome, only one, FamilyTreeDNA, provides X-matching. You can obtain X-matching results by uploading your DNA file to FamilyTreeDNA. I’ve provided upload/download instructions for all companies, here.

X-DNA has a very unique inheritance pattern because males only inherit an X chromosome from their mother which limits the number of potential common ancestors for any two testers. In other words, X-DNA matching does half your work for you!

Clustering Technology – AutoClusters, the Matrix and DNAPainter

In the past few years, match clustering has become a very useful tool. Clustering shows which of your matches match you and each other.

Genetic Affairs offers several flavors of these clusters, and both MyHeritage and GEDmatch have incorporated Genetic Affairs clusters into their product offerings.

If you haven’t used AutoClusters yet, by all means, try them out.

FamilyTreeDNA offers the Matrix, a slightly different version of clustering. You can select 10 people from your match list to see if they also match each other. Shared matches don’t automatically mean triangulation between you and those two people, or even that all three people descend from the same line. However, if the people are bucketed to your same side (parent) and they share common segments with you in the chromosome browser, they triangulate.

You’ll want to paint those matches to DNAPainter to determine which ancestor you share, especially if they haven’t provided a tree.

DNAPainter provides your chromosomes as the “canvas” upon which to paint your matches in order to correlate segments with ancestors and identify common ancestral lines with mystery matches.

Three vendors, FamilyTreeDNA, MyHeritage, and GEDmatch provide segment information with matches for you to paint. I illustrate how I walk segments back in time, identifying our most distant common ancestor possible.

Theories of Family Relativity and ThruLines

Both MyHeritage and Ancestry provide a combination of DNA matching and tree triangulation, where they search the trees of your DNA matches to find common ancestors with you – although their implementation is different.

MyHeritage’s Theories of Family Relativity provides varying theories about common ancestors for you and a specific match using both trees and historical documents. You can review the various pathways and confirm or reject theories. I love this tool.

Ancestry’s Thrulines functions a bit differently, showing you all of your matches that descend from a common ancestor in all your matches’ trees. Sometimes, the trees are incorrect, but Theories of Family Relativity and ThruLines should still be used as hints.

I showed how ThruLines helped me discover what happened to one of my ancestor’s grandchildren who was lost to the family at his mother’s death – and to all of us since. Not anymore.

Bonus – Y-DNA and Mitochondrial DNA at FamilyTreeDNA

Only FamilyTreeDNA offers both Y-DNA and Mitochondrial DNA testing and matching. All of the tools above pertain to autosomal DNA testing, which is named Family Finder at FamilyTreeDNA. Illustrated by the green arrow below, autosomal DNA testing measures and compares the DNA you inherited from each ancestral line, but that’s not the only game in town.

Y-DNA, in blue, for males, tracks the direct paternal line, which is the surname line in Western cultures. Mitochondrial DNA, in red, is passed from mothers to all of their children. Therefore, everyone can test, revealing matches and information about their mother’s direct matrilineal lineage.

Y-DNA testing includes the amazing Discover tool with a baker’s dozen different reports, including ancient DNA. Mitochondrial DNA will soon have its own MitoDiscover after the rollout of the new Mitotree.

Both tests include “Matches Maps” to help you determine how you are related to your matches, as well as where your ancestors came from before the advent of surnames.

The Advanced Matching feature allows you to select multiple tests to see if your matches match you on combined types of tests.

Tune In

Now that you know what we cover in the webinar, please tune in to see how to use these awesome tools. Be sure to fish in all four “ponds” plus GEDmatch, where you may find people who didn’t test at a company that provides a chromosome browser or matching segment information.

Tools provided by the DNA testing vendors facilitate multiple ways to determine how we match and which ancestor(s) we have in common.

You can watch the webinar, here.

Additionally, subscribers to Legacy Family Tree Webinars have access to the 25-page syllabus with even more information!

A Legacy Family Tree Webinar subscription normally costs $49.95 per year, but through the end of September, there’s a coupon code good for 20% off. Just click here, then enter webtember24 at the checkout.

Enjoy!

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If you haven’t already subscribed (it’s free,) you can receive an e-mail whenever I publish by clicking the “follow” button on the main blog page, here.

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I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase your price but helps me keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

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DNA Academy Webinar Series Released

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Great news! Legacy Family Tree Webinars has just released DNA Academy.

DNA Academy is a three-part series designed to introduce the basics of DNA for genetic genealogy and how Y-DNA, X-DNA, mitochondrial and autosomal DNA can be utilized. Each of these different types of DNA serves a different function for genealogists – and reveals different matches and hints for genealogy.

  1. DNA Academy Part 1 introduces genetic genealogy basics, then, Ancestry’s DNA tools – including their new pricing structure for DNA features. Click here to view.
  2. DNA Academy Part 2 covers FamilyTreeDNA’s products. Click here to view the webinar, which includes:
    1. Y-DNA for males which tracks the direct paternal line
    2. Mitochondrial DNA for everyone which tracks your direct maternal line – your mother’s mother’s mother’s lineage
    3. Autosomal DNA which includes matches from all of your ancestral lines and along with X-DNA matching, which has a very distinctive inheritance path.
  3. DNA Academy Part 3 includes MyHeritage, 23andMe, and third-party tools such as DNAPainter and Genetic Affairs. Click here to view.

Legacy Family Tree Webinars has graciously made Part 2, the FamilyTreeDNA class, free through August 22nd for everyone – so be sure to watch now.

After August 22nd, Part 2 will join Part 1 and Part 3 in the webinar library for subscribers with more than 2240 webinars for $49.95 per year.

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If you haven’t already subscribed (it’s free,) you can receive an e-mail whenever I publish by clicking the “follow” button on the main blog page, here.

You Can Help Keep This Blog Free

I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase your price but helps me keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

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Paint LivingDNA Chromosome Segments to DNAPainter

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LivingDNA entered the genetic genealogy landscape as a vendor in September of 2016, A British company, they were and remain focused on British Isles testers and ethnicity based on the POBI, People of the British Isles Study.

Initially, they provided only ethnicity results and high-level haplogroups, but added family matching relatively recently.

If you have not tested or uploaded to LivingDNA, you may want to read about the company and leadership, here, before doing so.

Family Matching

Please note that their family matching is imperfect, so exercise a great deal of caution.

This states that my mother’s kit, which I uploaded and own, has no matches.

My mother reportedly has no matches, including NOT TO ME. If I were to make a family inference from this, I would conclude that my mother is not my mother. That is very clearly not the case. For obvious reasons, it could be even more damaging within a family unit for a DNA company to report no matches between a father and child.

However, a second upload file from the same testing company for my mother at LivingDNA DOES reflect me as a match.

I have about 650 matches at LivingDNA, but I only share 141 matches with my mother. The rest would either be to my father’s side of the family, or identical by chance (IBC.)

Chromosome Browser

LivingDNA has been promising a chromosome browser “soon” for several years now, since at least the fall of 2017 when I spoke to them at Genetic Genealogy Ireland in Dublin. That long-awaited day has arrived. You can view your matches in a chromosome browser and paint your segments with your matches at DNAPainter to obtain additional information.

To briefly review, the purpose of a chromosome browser is to identify specific segments of your DNA that you share in common with your matches. These common segments will be associated with your common ancestors, presuming the match is identical by descent (IBD) and not identical by chance (IBC.) If you’re unfamiliar, you can read about those concepts in the article Concepts – Identical by…Descent, State, Population and Chance.

Assigning Common Segments

Of course, assigning common DNA segments with your matches to specific ancestors implies one of three things.

Either:

  1. A tree where you can identify a common ancestor or ancestral line with your match
  2. Shared matches with a family member you know
  3. Communications with your match to identify a shared ancestor

LivingDNA does not provide a tree function, so you cannot view other testers’ family trees. Neither do they provide a field for a link to an existing tree someplace else, so users are handicapped.

LivingDNA does provide a message facility, so you can message your matches and ask about their genealogy and where they may have a tree you can view.

Unless you recognize a match or your match provides you with a tree to view, you may only be able to identify common ancestors through previously identified shared matches.

Shared Matches

Your best bet is identifying a cousin or other family member at LivingDNA. I only have one match that I can identify, and that’s my mother.

I can click on our 141 shared matches in common to view that list.

Unfortunately, my closest shared match with my mother is 36 cM. Matches are not listed in segment size order. LivingDNA is not popular outside of the British Isles, but you never know where a useful match will pop up.

My closest match, other than my mother, is Christopher with whom I share 101 cM across five segments.

Christopher does not share a match with my mother, and 101 cM is too large to be IBC, so my conclusion would be that Christopher and I share ancestors on my father’s side.

I viewed the 17 shared matches Christopher and I have in common, but I don’t recognize anyone from the other testing sites.

I could, of course, message Christopher and ask about his genealogy.

However, there’s another option too. Because I’ve been painting my known matches at DNAPainter, I can now paint my match with Christopher, which might identify our common ancestor or at least provide a significant hint.

Chromosome Browser

My personal goal is to identify my DNA segments that descend from each ancestor, and to associate 100% of my DNA with an ancestor. Without knowing who our common ancestor is, painting matching segments is not terribly useful.

However, let’s say that I know who Christopher is, or that I recognize some of our 17 shared matches allowing me to identify our common ancestor(s).

By clicking on the right arrow, you’ll be able to view a selection menu.

By clicking on the blue Shared DNA Beta link, I can view my match with Christopher either on a chromosome browser, or in a table.

My common segments with Christopher are painted on my chromosomes, above.

Click on “table view” at the top to view only the segment data where Christopher matches me on chromosomes 1-22.

Painting at DNAPainter

Click on the “Copy segment data” tab in the upper right-hand corner to copy the segment data to paint at DNAPainter.

I have written several articles about using DNAPainter, which you can reference, here.

Open DNAPainter.

I selected “Paint a New Match” at DNAPainter, then pasted the copied segment information from LivingDNA.

Click on “Save Match Now’ in the lower right-hand corner.

You will need to select either the maternal or paternal side, or unknown.

We know that Christopher matches me on my father’s side because the match is large and we do not share my mother as a match.

Since I haven’t yet identified our common ancestor, I selected teal blue to differentiate the LivingDNA match.

As it turns out, Christopher at LivingDNA matches the same segments as another man named Christopher who tested at 23andMe. It’s the same person.

I identified my common ancestor with Christopher at 23andMe as Lazarus Estes and Elizabeth Vannoy, my great-grandparents.

At DNAPainter, I’ve assigned segments of other descendants of this couple the color grey. You can easily see that the same segment on chromosome 14 is assigned to several other descendants of Lazarus Estes and Elizabeth Vannoy.

Therefore, the additional 17 shared matches at LivingDNA with Christopher, assuming they are valid IBD matches, would descend from the same genetic line, if not the same couple. In other words, some of that DNA might have descended to me from Lazarus or Elizabeth, but might have descended to Christopher or others through the parents of either Lazarus or Elizabeth, or another common upstream ancestor.

Every segment has its own unique ancestral history.

Thanks to DNAPainter

LivingDNA has joined the group of vendors who provide a complimentary chromosome browser and segment information for their customers. Other DNA testing vendors who do as well include 23andMe, FamilyTreeDNA and MyHeritage, plus third-party GEDmatch.

A big thank you to DNAPainter for a comprehensive tool to track segments and assign them to ancestors in one easy-to-use all-inclusive tool.

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You’re always welcome to forward articles or links to friends and share on social media.

If you haven’t already subscribed (it’s free,) you can receive an email whenever I publish by clicking the “follow” button on the main blog page, here.

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I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase the price you pay but helps me to keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

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Which DNA Test Should I Buy? And Why?

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Which DNA test should I buy, and why?

I receive questions like this often. As a reminder, I don’t take private clients anymore, which means I don’t provide this type of individual consulting or advice. However, I’m doing the next best thing! In this article, I’m sharing the step-by-step process that I utilize to evaluate these questions so you can use the process too.

It’s important to know what questions to ask and how to evaluate each situation to arrive at the best answer for each person.

Here’s the question I received from someone I’ll call John. I’ve modified the wording slightly and changed the names for privacy.

I’m a male, and my mother was born in Charleston, SC. My maternal grandmother’s maiden name was Jones and a paternal surname was Davis. The family was supposed to have been Black, Dutch, Pennsylvania Dutch, and Scots-Irish…only once was I told I was 3/16 Indian, with Davis being 3/4 and Jones being full Indian.

Do I have enough reasonable information to buy a test, and which one?

Please note that it’s common for questions to arrive without all the information you need to provide a sound answer – so it’s up to you to ask those questions and obtain clarification.

Multiple Questions

There are actually multiple questions here, so let me parse this a bit.

  1. John never mentioned what his testing goal was.
  2. He also never exactly said how the paternal line of Davis was connected, so I’ve made an assumption. For educational purposes, it doesn’t matter because we’re going to walk through the evaluation process, which is the same regardless.
  3. John did not include a tree or a link to a tree, so I created a rudimentary tree to sort through this. I need the visuals and normally just sketch it out on paper quickly.
  4. Does John have enough information to purchase a test?
  5. If so, which test?

There is no “one size fits all” answer, so let’s discuss these one by one.

Easy Answers First

The answer to #4 is easy.

Anyone with any amount of information can purchase a DNA test. Adoptees do it all the time, and they have no prior information.

So, yes, John can purchase a test.

The more difficult question is which test, because that answer depends on John’s goals and whether he’s just looking for some quick information or really wants to delve into genealogy and learn. Neither approach is wrong.

Many people think they want a quick answer –  and then quickly figure out that they really want to know much more about their ancestors.

I wrote an article titled DNA Results – First Glances at Ethnicity and Matching for new testers, here.

Goals

Based on what John said, I’m going to presume his goals are probably:

  • To prove or disprove the family oral history of Black, Dutch, Pennsylvania Dutch (which is actually German,) Scots-Irish, and potentially Native American.
  • John didn’t mention actual genealogy, which would include DNA matches and trees, so we will count that as something John is interested in secondarily. However, he may need genealogy records to reach his primary goal.

If you’re thinking, “The process of answering this seemingly easy question is more complex than I thought,” you’d be right.

Ethnicity in General

It sounds like John is interested in ethnicity testing. Lots of people think that “the answer” will be found there – and sometimes they are right. Often not so much. It depends.

The great news is that John really doesn’t need any information at all to take an autosomal DNA test, and it doesn’t matter if the test-taker is male or female.

To calculate each tester’s ethnicity, every testing company compiles their own reference populations, and John will receive different results at each of the major companies. Each company updates their ethnicity results from time to time as well, and they will change.

Additionally, each company provides different tools for their customers.

The ethnicity results at different companies generally won’t match each other exactly, and sometimes the populations look quite different.

Normally, DNA from a specific ancestor can be found for at least 5 or 6 generations. Of course, that means their DNA, along with the DNA from all of your other ancestors is essentially combined in a communal genetic “pot” of your chromosomes, and the DNA testing company needs to sort it out and analyze your DNA for ethnicity.

DNA descended from ancestors, and their populations, further back in people’s trees may not be discerned at all using autosomal DNA tests.

A much more specific “ethnicity” can be obtained for both the Y-DNA line, which is a direct patrilineal line for men (blue arrow,) and the mitochondrial DNA line (pink arrows,) which is a direct matrilineal line for everyone, using those specific tests.

We will discuss both of those tests after we talk about the autosomal tests available from the four major genealogy DNA testing companies. All of these tools can and should be used together.

Let’s Start with Native American

Let’s evaluate the information that John provided.

John was told that he “was 3/16 Indian, with Davis being 3/4 and Jones being full Indian.”

We need to evaluate this part of his question slightly differently.

I discussed this in the article, Ancestral DNA Percentages – How Much of Them is in You?

First, we need to convert generations to 16ths.

You have two ancestors in your parent’s generation, four in your grandparents, and so forth. You have 16 great-great-grandparents. So, if John was 3/16th Native, then three of his great-great-grandparents would have been fully Native, or an equivalent percentage. In other words, six ancestors in that generation could have been half-Native. Based on what John said, they would have come from his mother’s side of the tree. John is fortunate to have that much information to work with.

He told us enough about his tree that we can evaluate the statement that he might be 3/16ths Native.

Here’s the tree I quickly assembled in a spreadsheet based on John’s information.

His father, at left, is not part of the equation based on the information John provided.

On his mother’s side, John said that Grandfather Davis is supposed to be three-quarters Native, which translates to 12/16ths. Please note that it would be extremely beneficial to find a Y-DNA tester from his Davis line, like one of his mother’s brothers, for example.

John said that his Grandmother Jones is supposed to be 100% Native, so 16/16ths.

Added together, those sum to 28/32, which reduces down to 14/16th or 7/8th for John’s mother.

John would have received half of his autosomal DNA from his mother and half from his non-Native father. That means that if John’s father is 100% non-Native, John would be half of 14/16ths or 7/16ths, so just shy of half Native.

Of course, we know that we don’t always receive exactly 50% of each of our ancestors’ DNA (except for our parents,) but we would expect to see something in the ballpark of 40-45% Native for John if his grandmother was 100% Native and his grandfather was 75%.

Using simple logic here, for John’s grandmother to be 100% Native, she would almost assuredly have been a registered tribal member, and the same if his grandfather was 75% Native. I would think that information would be readily available and well-known to the family – so I doubt that this percentage is accurate. It would be easy to check, though, on various census records during their lifetimes where they would likely have been recorded as “Indian.” They might have been in the special “Indian Census” taken and might be living on a reservation.

It should also be relatively easy to find their parents since all family members were listed every ten years in the US beginning with the 1850 census.

The simple answer is that if John’s grandparents had as much Native as reported, he would be more than 3/16th – so both of these factoids cannot simultaneously be accurate. But that does NOT mean neither is accurate.

John could be 7/8th or 40ish%, 3/16th or 18ish%, or some other percentage. Sometimes, where there is smoke, there is fire. And that seems to be the quandary John is seeking to resolve.

Would  Ethnicity/Population Tests Show This Much Native?

Any of the four major testing companies would show Native for someone whose percentage would be in the 40% or 18% ballpark.

The easiest ethnicities to tell apart from one another are continental-level populations. John also stated that he thinks he may also have Black ancestry, plus Dutch, Pennsylvania Dutch (German), and Scots-Irish. It’s certainly possible to verify that using genealogy, but what can DNA testing alone tell us?

How far back can we expect to find ethnicities descending from particular ancestors?

In this table, you can see at each generation how many ancestors you have in that generation, plus the percentage of DNA, on average, you would inherit from each ancestor.

All of the major DNA testing companies can potentially pick up small trace percentages, but they don’t always. Sometimes one company does, and another doesn’t. So, if John has one sixth-generation Native American ancestor, he would carry about 1.56% Native DNA, if any.

  • Sometimes a specific ethnicity is not found because, thanks to random recombination, you didn’t inherit any of that DNA from those ancestors. This is why testing your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and siblings can be very important. They share your same ancestors and may have inherited DNA that you didn’t that’s very relevant to your search.
  • Sometimes it’s not found because the reference populations and algorithms at that testing company aren’t able to detect that population or identify it accurately, especially at trace levels. Every DNA testing company establishes their own reference populations and writes internal, proprietary ethnicity analysis algorithms.
  • Sometimes it’s not found because your ancestor wasn’t Native or from that specific population.
  • Sometimes it’s there, but your population is called something you don’t expect.

For example, you may find Scandinavian when your ancestor was from England or Ireland. The Vikings raided the British Isles, so while some small amount of Scandinavian is not what you expect, that doesn’t mean it‘s wrong. However, if all of your family is from England, it’s not reasonable to have entirely Scandinavian ethnicity results.

It’s also less likely as each generation passes by that the information about their origins gets handed down accurately to following generations. Most non-genealogists don’t know the names of their great-grandparents, let alone where their ancestors were from.

Using a 25-year average generation length, by the 4th generation, shown in the chart above, you have 16 ancestors who lived approximately 100 years before your parents were born, so someplace in the mid-1800s. It’s unlikely for oral history from that time to survive intact. It’s even less likely from a century years earlier, where in the 7th generation, you have 128 total ancestors.

The best way to validate the accuracy of your ethnicity estimates is by researching your genealogy. Of course, you need to take an ethnicity test, or two, in order to have results to validate.

Ethnicity has a lot more to offer than just percentages.

Best Autosomal Tests for Native Ethnicity

Based on my experience with people who have confirmed Native ancestry, the two best tests to detect Native American ethnicity, especially in smaller percentages, are both FamilyTreeDNA and 23andMe.

Click images to enlarge

In addition to percentages, both 23andMe and FamilyTreeDNA provide chromosome painting for ethnicity, along with segment information in download files. In other words, they literally paint your ethnicity results on your chromosomes.

They then provide you with a file with the “addresses” of those ethnicities on your chromosomes, which means you can figure out which ancestors contributed those ethnicity segments.

The person in the example above, a tester at FamilyTreeDNA, is highly admixed with ancestors from European regions, African regions and Native people from South America.

Trace amounts of Native American with a majority of European heritage would appear more like this.

You can use this information to paint your chromosome segments at DNAPainter, along with your matching segments to other testers where you can identify your common ancestors. This is why providing trees is critically important – DNA plus ancestor identification with our matches is how we confirm our ancestry.

This combination allows you to identify which Native (or another ethnicity) segments descended from which ancestors. I was able to determine which ancestor provided that pink Native American segment on chromosome 1 on my mother’s side.

I’ve provided instructions for painting ethnicity segments to identify their origins in specific ancestors, here.

Autosomal and Genealogy

You may have noticed that we’ve now drifted into the genealogy realm of autosomal DNA testing. Ethnicity is nice, but if you want to know who those segments came from, you’ll need:

  • Autosomal test matching to other people
  • To identify your common ancestor with as many matches as you can
  • To match at a company who provides you with segment information for each match
  • To work with DNAPainter, which is very easy

The great news is that you can do all of that using the autosomal tests you took for ethnicity, except at Ancestry who does not provide segment information.

Best Autosomal Test for Matching Other Testers

The best autosomal test for matching may be different for everyone. Let’s look at some of the differentiators and considerations.

If you’re basing a testing recommendation solely on database size, which will probably correlate to more matches, then the DNA testing vendors fall into this order:

If you’re basing that recommendation on the BEST, generally meaning the closest matches for you, there’s no way of knowing ahead of time. At each of the four DNA testing companies, I have very good matches who have not tested elsewhere. If I weren’t in all four databases, I would have missed many valuable matches.

If you’re basing that recommendation on which vendor began testing earliest, meaning they have many tests from people who are now deceased, so you won’t find their autosomal tests in other databases that don’t accept uploads, the recommended testing company order would be:

If you’re basing that recommendation on matches to people who live in other countries, the order would be:

Ancestry and 23andMe are very distant third/fourth because they did not sell widely outside the US initially and still don’t sell in as many countries as the others, meaning their testers’ geography is more limited. However, Ancestry is also prevalent in the UK.

If you’re basing that recommendation on segment information and advanced tools that allow you to triangulate and confirm your genetic link to specific ancestors, the order would be:

Ancestry does NOT provide any segment information.

If you’re basing that recommendation on unique tools provided by each vendor, every vendor has something very beneficial that the others don’t.

In other words, there’s really no clear-cut answer for which single autosomal DNA test to order. The real answer is to be sure you’re fishing in all the ponds. The fish are not the same. Unique people test at each of those companies daily who will never be found in the other databases.

Test at or upload your DNA to all four DNA testing companies, plus GEDmatch. Step-by-step instructions for downloading your raw data file and uploading it to the DNA testing companies who accept uploads can be found, here.

Test or Upload

Not all testing companies accept uploads of raw autosomal DNA data files from other companies. The good news is that some do, and it’s free to upload and receive matches.

Two major DNA testing companies DO NOT accept uploads from other companies. In other words, you have to test at that company:

Two testing companies DO accept uploads from the other three companies. Uploads and matching are free, and advanced features can be unlocked very cost effectively.

  • FamilyTreeDNA – free matching and $19 unlock for advanced features
  • MyHeritage – free matching and $29 unlock.for advanced features

I recommend testing at both 23andMe and Ancestry and uploading one of those files to both FamilyTreeDNA and MyHeritage, then purchasing the respective unlocks.

GEDmatch

GEDmatch is a third-party matching site, not a DNA testing company. Consider uploading to GEDmatch because you may find matches from Ancestry who have uploaded to GEDmatch, giving you access to matching segment information.

Other Types of DNA

John provided additional information that may prove to be VERY useful. Both Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA can be tested as well and may prove to be more useful than autosomal to positively identify the origins of those two specific lines.

Let’s assume that John takes an autosomal test and discovers that indeed, the 3/16th Native estimate was close. 3/16th equates to about 18% Native which would mean that three of his 16 great-great-grandparents were Native.

John told us that his Grandmother Jones was supposed to be 100% Native.

At the great-great-grandparent level, John has 16 ancestors, so eight on his mother’s side, four from maternal grandmother Jones and four from his maternal grandfather Davis.

John carries the mitochondrial DNA of his mother (red boxes and arrows,) and her mother, through a direct line of females back in time. John also carries the Y-DNA of his father (dark blue box, at left above, and blue arrows below.)

Unlike autosomal DNA which is admixed in every generation, mitochondrial DNA (red arrows) is inherited from that direct matrilineal line ONLY and never combines with the DNA of the father. Mothers give their mitochondrial DNA to both sexes of their children, but men never contribute their mitochondrial DNA to offspring. Everyone has their mother’s mitochondrial DNA.

Because it never recombines with DNA from the father, so is never “watered down,” we can “see” much further back in time, even though we can’t yet identify those ancestors.

However, more importantly, in this situation, John can test his own mitochondrial DNA that he inherited from his mother, who inherited it from her mother, to view her direct matrilineal line.

John’s mitochondrial DNA haplogroup that will be assigned during testing tells us unquestionably whether or not his direct matrilineal ancestor was Native on her mother’s line, or not. If not, it may well tell us where that specific line originated.

You can view the countries around the world where Y-DNA haplogroups are found, here, and mitochondrial haplogroups, here.

If John’s mitochondrial DNA haplogroup is Native, that confirms that one specific line is Native. If he can find other testers in his various lines to test either their Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA, John can determine if other ancestors were Native too. If not, those tests will reveal the origins of that line, separate from the rest of his genealogical lines.

Although John didn’t mention his father’s line, if he takes a Y-DNA test, especially at the Big Y-700 level, that will also reveal the origins of his direct paternal line. Y-DNA doesn’t combine with the other parent’s DNA either, so it reaches far back in time too.

Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA tests are laser-focused on one line each, and only one line. You don’t have to try to sort it out of the ethnicity “pot,” wondering which ancestor was or was not Native.

My Recommendation

When putting together a testing strategy, I recommend taking advantage of free uploads and inexpensive unlocks when possible.

  • To confirm Native American ancestry via ethnicity testing, I recommend testing at 23andMe and uploading to FamilyTreeDNA, then purchasing the $19 unlock. The free upload and $19 unlock are less expensive than testing there directly.
  • For matching, I recommend testing at Ancestry and uploading to MyHeritage, then unlocking the MyHeritage advanced features for $29, which is less expensive than retesting. Ancestry does not provide segment information, but MyHeritage (and the others) do.

At this point, John will have taken two DNA tests, but is now in all four databases, plus GEDmatch if he uploads there.

  • For genealogy research on John’s lines to determine whether or not his mother’s lines were Native, I recommend an Ancestry and a MyHeritage records subscription, plus using WikiTree, which is free.
  • To determine if John’s mother’s direct matrilineal female line was Native, I recommend that John order the mitochondrial DNA test at FamilyTreeDNA.
  • When ordering multiple tests, or uploading at FamilyTreeDNA, be sure to upload/order all of one person’s tests on the same DNA kit so that those results can be used in combination with each other.

Both males and females can take autosomal and mitochondrial DNA tests.

  • To discover what he doesn’t know about his direct paternal, meaning John’s surname line – I recommend the Big Y-700 test at FamilyTreeDNA.

Only males can take a Y-DNA test, so women would need to ask their father, brother, or paternal uncle, for example, to test their direct paternal line.

  • If John can find a male Davis from his mother’s line, I recommend that he purchase the Big Y-700 test at FamilyTreeDNA for that person, or check to see if someone from his Davis line may have already tested by viewing the Davis DNA Project. Like with mitochondrial DNA, the Y-DNA haplogroup will tell John the origins of his direct Davis male ancestor – plus matching of course. He will be able to determine if they were Native, and if not, discover the origins of the Davis line.
  • For assigning segments to ancestors and triangulating to confirm descent from a common ancestor, I recommend 23andMe, MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA and GEDmatch, paired with DNAPainter as a tool.

Shopping and Research List

Here are the tests and links recommended above:

More Than He Asked

I realize this answer is way more than John expected or even knew to ask. That’s because there is often no “one” or “one best” answer. There are many ways to approach the question after the goal is defined, and the first “answer” received may be a bit out of context.

For example, let’s say John has 2% Native ancestry and took a test at a vendor who didn’t detect it. John would believe he had none. But a different vendor might find that 2%. If it’s on his mother’s direct matrilineal line, mitochondrial DNA testing will confirm, or refute Native, beyond any doubt, regardless of autosomal ethnicity results – but only for that specific ancestral line.

Autosomal DNA can suggest Native across all your DNA, but Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA confirm it for each individual ancestor.

Even when autosomal testing does NOT show Native American, or African, for example, it’s certainly possible that it’s just too far back in time or has not been passed down during random recombination, but either Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA will unquestionably confirm (or refute) the ancestry in question if the right person is tested.

This is exactly why I attempt to find a cousin who descends appropriately from every ancestor and provide testing scholarships. It’s important to obtain Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA information for each ancestor.

Which Test Should I Order?

What steps will help you decide which test or tests to take?

  1. Define your testing goal.
  2. Determine if your Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA will help answer the question.
  3. Determine if you need to find ancestors another generation or two back in time to get the most benefit from DNA testing. In our example, if John discovered that both of his grandparents were enrolled tribal members, that’s huge, and the tribe might have additional information about his family.
  4. Subscribe to Ancestry and MyHeritage records collections as appropriate to perform genealogical research. Additional information not only provides context for your family, it also provides you with the ability to confirm or better understand your ethnicity results.
  5. Extend your tree so that you can obtain the best results from the three vendors who support trees; Ancestry, FamilyTreeDNA, and MyHeritage. All three use trees combined with DNA tests to provide you with additional information.
  6. Order 23andMe and Ancestry autosomal DNA tests.
  7. Either test at or upload one of those tests to MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA, and GEDmatch.
  8. If a male, order the Big Y-700 DNA test. Or, find a male from your ancestral line who has taken or will take that test. I always offer a testing scholarship and, of course, share the exciting results!
  9. Order a mitochondrial DNA test for yourself and for appropriately descended family members to represent other ancestors. Remember that your father (and his siblings) all carry your paternal grandmother’s mitochondrial DNA. That’s often a good place to start after testing your own DNA.
  10. If your parents or grandparents are alive, or aunts and uncles, test their autosomal DNA too. They are (at least) one generation closer to your ancestors than you are and will carry more of your ancestors’ DNA.
  11. Your siblings will carry some of your ancestors’ DNA that you do not, so test them too if both of your parents aren’t available for testing.

Enjoy!!!

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Thank you so much.

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Family Tree Magazine’s Best Genealogy Websites for 2023

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Family Tree Magazine has just released its 101 best-of-the-best genealogy websites for 2023, grouped into categories. I’m quite honored that DNAeXplain is included in the Best Genetic Genealogy Websites category.

Congratulations to the other sites as well. You can read more about each one of the genetic genealogy sites here.

In addition, Family Tree Magazine is giving away a prize package here, to celebrate. I’ve entered! Who doesn’t want helpful tools for their genealogy.

OK, What Can I Do With This?

Having a list is quite nice, but beyond that, what can you do with this?

Are there companies whose products and services you’ve never tried?

Here’s one sentence about each of the winners in the genetic genealogy category with something you might not know:

  • 23andMe – Did you know 23andMe constructs a genetic tree for you based on your matches?
  • DNAeXplained – Did you know that DNAeXplain offers more than 1600 free step-by-step “how-to” articles and pages on a wide variety of topics, and you can search by keyword or surname in the search box?
  • DNAPainter – Did you know that DNAPainter offers a blog, videos and 15 different tools in addition to their famous chromosome painting?
  • FamilyTreeDNA – Did you know that FamilyTreeDNA offers both Y and mitochondrial DNA testing in addition to autosomal DNA testing and uploads where they bucket your matches maternally or paternally based on segment matches to people you link in your tree?
  • GEDmatch – Did you know that GEDmatch offers 13 free tools in addition to 15 Tier 1 (subscription) tools, including segment search and cluster tools from Genetic Affairs not available elsewhere?
  • ISOGG – Did you know that ISOGG was founded in 2005 to provide information about genetic genealogy, is free, and run by volunteers?
  • Your DNA Guide – Did you know that Diahan Southard at Your DNA Guide provides courses, free tools, and DNA coaching?

The Larger List

Of course, genetic genealogy is one of many tools in the genealogist’s toolbox, and no one is good at everything. We need specialists with a focus on and passion for specific topics.

Have you visited each of these websites on the list to see if they have something relevant for you?

Here’s one I love. David Rumsey’s Map Collection. He scans and provides absolutely AMAZING historical maps. I don’t know David, but if I ever meet him, he’s going to get a big hug and maybe some chocolate too!😊 I use these maps all the time. I want to see what the area where my ancestors lived was like when they lived there. David very graciously makes his 122,000 maps available for use under the creative commons license.

I encourage you to take a look at each site on the list. Even if there is nothing useful for you currently, you never know when you might need whatever that site has to offer. It’s always a good thing to expand your horizons.

Maybe you can discover something new about an ancestor today!

Have fun!

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You’re always welcome to forward articles or links to friends and share on social media.

If you haven’t already subscribed (it’s free,) you can receive an email whenever I publish by clicking the “follow” button on the main blog page, here.

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I receive a small contribution when you click on some of the links to vendors in my articles. This does NOT increase the price you pay but helps me to keep the lights on and this informational blog free for everyone. Please click on the links in the articles or to the vendors below if you are purchasing products or DNA testing.

Thank you so much.

DNA Purchases and Free Uploads

Genealogy Products and Services

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What Is a Sibling Anyway? Full, Half, Three-Quarters, Step, Adopted, Donor-Conceived & Twins

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I’ve seen the term sibling used many different ways, sometimes incorrectly.

When referring to their own siblings, people usually use the term brother or sister, regardless of whether they are talking about a full, half or step-sibling. It’s a term of heart or description. It’s often genealogists who are focused on which type of sibling. As far as I’m concerned, my brother is my brother, regardless of which type of brother. But in terms of genetics, and genealogy, there’s a huge difference. How we feel about our sibling(s) and how we are biologically related are two different things.

Let’s cover the various types of siblingship and how to determine which type is which.

  • Full Siblings – Share both parents
  • Half-Siblings – Share only one parent
  • Three-Quarter Siblings – It’s complicated
  • Adopted Siblings
  • Donor-Conceived
  • Step-Siblings – Share no biological parent
  • Twins – Fraternal and Identical

Full Siblings

Full siblings share both parents and share approximately 50% of their DNA with each other.

You can tell if you are full siblings with a match in various ways.

  1. You share the same fairly close matches on both parents’ sides. For example, aunts or uncles or their descendants.

Why do I say close matches? You could share one parent and another more distant relative on the other parent’s side. Matching with close relatives like aunts, uncles or first cousins at the appropriate level is an excellent indicator unless your parents or grandparents are available for testing. If you are comparing to grandparents, be sure to confirm matches to BOTH grandparents on each side.

  1. Full siblings will share in the ballpark of 2600 cM, according to DNAPainter’s Shared cM Tool.

Keep in mind that you can share more or less DNA, hence the range. It’s also worth noting that some people who reported themselves as full siblings in the Shared cM project were probably half siblings and didn’t realize it.

  1. Full siblings will share a significant amount of fully identical regions (FIR) of DNA with each other, meaning they share DNA at the same DNA address from both parents, as illustrated above. Shared DNA with each other inherited from Mom and Dad are blocked in green. The fully identical regions, shared with both parents, are bracketed in purple. You can’t make this determination at FamilyTreeDNA, MyHeritage or Ancestry, but you can at both 23andMe and GEDmatch.

At GEDmatch, the large fully green areas in the chromosome browser “graphics and positions” display indicates full siblings, where DNA is shared from both parents at that location.

I wrote about the details of how to view fully identical regions (FIR) versus half identical regions (HIR) in the article, DNA: In Search of…Full and Half-Siblings.

  1. If your parents/grandparents have tested, you and your full sibling will both match both parents/grandparents. Yes, I know this sounds intuitive, but sometimes it’s easy to miss the obvious.

At FamilyTreeDNA, you can use the matrix tool to see who matches each other in a group of people that you can select. In this case, both siblings are compared to the father, but if the father isn’t available, a close paternal relative could substitute. Remember that all people who are 2nd cousins or closer will match.

  1. At Ancestry, full siblings will be identified as either “brother” or “sister,” while half-siblings do not indicate siblingship. Half-siblings are called “close family” and a range of possible relationships is given. Yes, Ancestry, is looking under the hood at FIR/HIR regions. I have never seen a full sibling misidentified as anything else at Ancestry. Unfortunately, Ancestry does not give customers access to their matching chromosome segment location data.
  2. Y-DNA of males who are full siblings will match but may have some slight differences. Y-DNA alone cannot prove a specific relationship, with very rare exceptions, but can easily disprove a relationship if two males do not match. Y-DNA should be used in conjunction with autosomal DNA for specific relationship prediction when Y-DNA matches.
  3. Y-DNA testing is available only through FamilyTreeDNA, but high-level haplogroup-only estimates are available through 23andMe. Widely divergent haplogroups, such as E versus R, can be considered a confirmed non-match. Different haplogroups within the same base haplogroup, such as R, but obtained from different vendors or different testing levels may still be a match if they test at the Big Y-700 level at FamilyTreeDNA.
  4. Mitochondrial DNA, inherited matrilineally from the mother, will match for full siblings (barring unusual mutations such as heteroplasmies) but cannot be used in relationship verification other than to confirm nonmatches. For both Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA, it’s possible to have a lineage match that is not the result of a direct parental relationship.
  5. Mitochondrial DNA testing is available only through FamilyTreeDNA, but haplogroup-only estimates are included at 23andMe. Different base haplogroups such as H and J can be considered a non-match.
  6. A difference in ethnicity is NOT a reliable indicator of half versus full siblings.

Half-Siblings

Half-siblings share only one parent, but not both, and usually share about 25% of their DNA with each other.

You will share as much DNA with a half-sibling as you do some other close matches, so it’s not always possible for DNA testing companies to determine the exact relationship.

Referencing the MyHeritage cM Explainer tool, you can see that people who share 1700 cM of DNA could be related in several ways. I wrote about using the cM Explainer tool here.

Hints that you are only half-siblings include:

  1. At testing vendors, including Ancestry, a half-sibling will not be identified as a sibling but as another type of close match.
  2. If your parents or grandparents have tested, you will only match one parent or one set of grandparents or their descendants.
  3. You will not have shared matches on one parent’s side. If you know that specific, close relatives have tested on one parent’s side, and you don’t match them, but your other family members do, that’s a very big hint. Please note that you need more than one reference point, because it’s always possible that the other person has an unknown parentage situation.
  4. At 23andMe, you will not show fully identical regions (FIR).
  5. At GEDmatch, you will show only very minimal FIR.

Scattered, very small green FIR locations are normal based on random recombination. Long runs of green indicate that significant amounts of DNA was inherited from both parents. The example above is from half-siblings.

  1. At FamilyTreeDNA and 23andMe, most men who share a mother will also share an X chromosome match since men only inherit their X chromosome from their mother. However, it is possible for the mother to give one son her entire X chromosome from her father, and give the other son her entire X chromosome from her mother. Therefore, two men who do share a mother but don’t have an X chromosome match could still be siblings. The X is not an entirely reliable relationship predictor. However, if two men share an entire X chromosome match, it’s very likely that they are siblings on their mother’s side, or that their mothers are very close relatives.

Three-Quarter Siblings

This gets a little more complicated.

Three-quarter siblings occur when one parent is the same, and the other parents are siblings to each other.

Let’s use a real-life example.

A couple marries and has children. The mother dies, and the father marries the mother’s sister and has additional children. Those children are actually less than full siblings, but more than half-siblings.

Conversely, a woman has children by two brothers and those children are three-quarter siblings.

These were common situations in earlier times when a man needed a female companion to raise children and women needed a male companion to work on the farm. Neither one could perform both childcare and the chores necessary to earn a living in an agricultural society, and your deceased spouse’s family members were already people you knew. They already loved your children too.

Neither of these situations is historically unusual, but both are very difficult to determine using genetics alone, even in the current generation.

Neither X-DNA nor mitochondrial DNA will be helpful, and Y-DNA will generally not be either.

Unfortunately, three-quarter siblings’ autosomal DNA will fall in the range of both half and full siblings, although not at the bottom of the half-sibling range, nor at the top of the full sibling range – but that leaves a lot of middle ground.

I’ve found it almost impossible to prove this scenario without prior knowledge, and equally as impossible to determine which of multiple brothers is the father unless there is a very strong half-sibling match in addition.

The DNA-Sci blog discusses this phenomenon, but I can’t utilize comparison screenshots according to their terms of service.

Clearly, what we need are more known three-quarter siblings to submit data to be studied in order to (possibly) facilitate easier determination, probably based on the percentage frequency distribution of FIR/HIR segments. Regardless, it’s never going to be 100% without secondary genealogical information.

Three-quarter siblings aren’t very common today, but they do exist. If you suspect something of this nature, really need the answer, and have exhausted all other possibilities, I recommend engaging a very experienced genetic genealogist with experience in this type of situation. However, given the random nature of recombination in humans, we may never be able to confirm using any methodology, with one possible exception.

There’s one possibility using Y-DNA if the parents in question are two brothers. If one brother has a Y-DNA SNP mutation that the other does not have, and this can be verified by testing either the brothers who are father candidates or their other known sons via the Big Y-700 test – the father of the siblings could then be identified by this SNP mutation as well. Yes, it’s a long shot.

Three-quarter sibling situations are very challenging.

Step-siblings, on the other hand, are easy.

Step-Siblings

Step-siblings don’t share either parent, so their DNA will not match to each other unless their parents are somehow related to each other. Please note that this means either of their parents, not just the parents who marry each other.

One child’s parent marries the other child’s parent, resulting in a blended family. The children then become step-siblings to each other.

The terms step-sibling and half-sibling are often used interchangeably, and they are definitely NOT the same.

Adopted Siblings

Adopted siblings may not know they are adopted and believe, until DNA testing, that they are biological siblings.

Sometimes adopted siblings are either half-siblings or are otherwise related to each other but may not be related to either of their adoptive parents. Conversely, adopted siblings, one or both, may be related to one of their adoptive parents.

The same full and half-sibling relationship genetic clues apply to adopted siblings, as well as the tools and techniques in the In Search of Unknown Family series of articles.

Donor-Conceived Siblings

Donor-conceived siblings could be:

  • Half-siblings if the donor is the same father but a different mother.
  • Half-siblings if they share an egg donor but not a father.
  • Full siblings if they are full biological siblings to each other, meaning both donors are the same but not related to the woman into whom the fertilized egg was implanted, nor to her partner, their legal parents.
  • Not biologically related to each other or either legal parent.
  • Biologically related to one or both legal parents when a family member is either an egg or sperm donor.

Did I cover all of the possible scenarios? The essence is that we literally know nothing and should assume nothing.

I have known of situations where the brother (or brothers) of the father was the sperm donor, so the resulting child or children appear to be full or three-quarters siblings to each other. They are related to their legal father who is the mother’s partner. In other words, in this situation, the mother’s husband was infertile, and his brother(s) donated sperm resulting in multiple births. The children from this family who were conceived through different brothers and had very close (half-sibling) matches to their “uncles'” children were very confused until they spoke with their parents about their DNA results.

The same techniques to ascertain relationships would be used with donor-conceived situations. Additionally, if it appears that a biological relationship exists, but it’s not a full or half-sibling relationship, I recommend utilizing other techniques described in the In Search of Unknown Family series.

Twins or Multiple Birth Siblings

Two types of twin or multiple birth scenarios exist outside of assisted fertilization.

Fraternal twins – With fraternal or dizygotic twins, two eggs are fertilized independently by separate sperm. Just view this as one pregnancy with two siblings occupying the same space for the same 9 months of gestation. Fraternal twins can be male, female or one of each sex.

Fraternal twins are simply siblings that happen to gestate together and will match in the same way that full siblings match.

Please note that it’s possible for two of a woman’s eggs to be fertilized at different times during the same ovulation cycle, potentially by different men, resulting in twins who are actually half-siblings.

A difference in ethnicity is NOT a reliable indicator of fraternal or identical twins. Submitting your own DNA twice often results in slightly different ethnicity results.

Identical twins – Identical or monozygotic twins occur when one egg is fertilized by one sperm and then divides into multiple embryos that develop into different children. Those children are genetically identical since they were both developed from the same egg and sperm.

Two of the most famous identical twins are astronauts Mark and Scott Kelly.

Identical twins are the same sex and will look the same because they have the same DNA, except for epigenetic changes, but of course external factors such as haircuts, clothes and weight can make identical twins physically distinguishable from each other.

DNA testing companies will either identify identical twins as “self,” “identical twin” or “parent/child” due to the highest possible shared cM count plus fully matching FIR regions.

For identical twins, checking the FIR versus HIR is a positive identification as indicated above at GEDmatch with completely solid green FIR regions. Do not assume twins that look alike are identical twins.

Siblings

Whoever thought there would be so many kinds of siblings!

If you observe the need to educate about either sibling terminology or DNA identification methodologies, feel free to share this article. When identifying relationships, never assume anything, and verify everything through multiple avenues.

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DNA: In Search Of…Your Grandparents

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Are you searching for an unknown relative or trying to unravel and understand unexpected results? Maybe you discovered that one or both of your parents is not your biological parent. Maybe one of your siblings might be a half-sibling instead. Or maybe you suddenly have an unexpected match that looks to be an unknown close relative, possibly a half-sibling. Perhaps there’s a close match you can’t place.

Or, are you searching for the identity of your grandparent or grandparents? If you’re searching for your parent or parents, often identifying your grandparents is a necessary step to narrow the parent-candidates.

I’ve written an entire series of “In Search of Unknown Family” articles, permanently listed together, here. They will step you through the search process and help you understand how to unravel your results. If you’re new, reading these, in order, before proceeding, would be a good idea.

Identifying a Grandparent

I saved this “grandparents” article for later in the series because you will need the tools and techniques I’ve introduced in the earlier articles. Identifying grandparents is often the most challenging of any of the relationships we’ve covered so far. In part because each of those four individuals occupies a different place in your tree, meaning their X, Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA is carried by different, and not all, descendants. This means we sometimes have to utilize different tools and techniques.

If you’re trying to identify any of your four grandparents, females are sometimes more challenging than males.

Why?

Women don’t have a Y chromosome to test. This can be a double handicap. Female testers can’t test a Y chromosome, and maternal ancestors don’t have a Y chromosome to match.

Of course, every circumstance differs. You may not have a male to test for paternal lines either.

The maternal grandfather can be uniquely challenging, because two types of DNA, Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA matching are immediately eliminated for all testers.

While I’ve focused on the maternal grandfather in this example, these techniques can be utilized for all four grandparents as well as for parents. At the end, I’ll review other grandparent relationships and additional tools you might be able to utilize for each one.

In addition to autosomal DNA, we can also utilize mitochondrial DNA, Y-DNA and sometimes X DNA in certain situations.

Testing, Tests and Vendors

As you recall, only men have a Y chromosome (blue arrow), so only genetic males can take a Y-DNA test. Men pass their Y chromosome from father to son in each generation. Daughters don’t receive a Y chromosome.

Everyone has their mother’s mitochondrial DNA (pink arrow.) Women pass their mitochondrial DNA to both sexes of their children, but only females pass it on. In the current generation, represented by the son and daughter, above, the mother’s yellow heart-shaped mitochondrial DNA is inherited by both sexes of her children. In the current generation, males and females can both test for their mother’s mitochondrial DNA.

Of course, everyone has autosomal DNA, inherited from all of their ancestral lines through at least the 5th or 6th generation, and often further back in time. Autosomal DNA is divided in half in each generation, as children inherit half of each parents’ autosomal DNA (with the exception of the X chromosome, which males only inherit from their mother.)

The four major vendors, Ancestry, 23andMe, FamilyTreeDNA and MyHeritage sell autosomal DNA tests, but only FamilyTreeDNA sells Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA tests.

Only 23andMe and FamilyTreeDNA report X matching.

All vendors except Ancestry provide segment location information along with a chromosome browser.

You can read about the vendor’s strengths and weaknesses in the third article, here.

Ordering Y and Mitochondrial DNA Tests

If you’re seeking the identities of grandparents, the children and parents, above, can test for the following types of DNA in addition to autosomal:

Person in Pedigree Y-DNA Mitochondrial
Son His father’s blue star His mother’s pink heart
Daughter None Her mother’s pink heart
Father His father’s blue star His mother’s gold heart
Mother None Her mother’s pink heart

Note that none of the people shown above in the direct pedigree line carry the Y-DNA of the green maternal grandfather. However, if the mother has a full sibling, the green “Male Child,” he will carry the Y-DNA of the maternal grandfather. Just be sure the mother and her brother are full siblings, because otherwise, the brother’s Y-DNA may not have been inherited from your mother’s father. I wrote about full vs half sibling determination, here.

Let’s view this from a slightly different perspective. For each grandparent in the tree, which of the two testers, son or daughter, if either, carry that ancestor’s DNA of the types listed in the columns.

Ancestor in Tree Y-DNA Mitochondrial DNA Autosomal DNA X DNA
Paternal Grandfather Son Neither Son, daughter Neither
Paternal Grandmother Has no Y chromosome None (father has it, doesn’t pass it on to son or daughter) Son, daughter Daughter (son does not receive father’s X chromosome)
Maternal Grandfather Neither Neither Son, daughter Son, daughter (potentially)
Maternal Grandmother Has no Y chromosome Son, daughter Son, daughter Son, daughter (potentially)

Obtaining the Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA of those grandparents from their descendants will provide hints and may be instrumental in identifying the grandparent.

FamilyTreeDNA

You’ll need to order Y-DNA (males only) and mitochondrial DNA tests separately from autosomal DNA tests. They are three completely different tests.

At FamilyTreeDNA, the autosomal DNA test is called Family Finder to differentiate it from their Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA tests.

Their autosomal test is called Family Finder whether you order a test from FamilyTreeDNA, or upload your results to their site from another vendor (instructions here.)

I recommend ordering the Big Y-700 Y-DNA test if possible, and if not, the highest resolution Y-DNA test you can afford. The Big Y-700 is the most refined Y-DNA test available, includes multiple tools and places Big Y-700 testers on the Time Tree through the Discover tool, providing relatively precise estimates of when those men shared a common ancestor. If you’ve already purchased a lower-precision Y-DNA test at FamilyTreeDNA, you can easily upgrade.

I wrote about using the Discover tool here. The recently added Group Time Tree draws a genetic Y-DNA tree of Big-Y testers in common projects, showing earliest known ancestors and the date of the most recent common ancestor.

You need to make sure your Family Finder, mitochondrial DNA and Y-DNA (if you’re a male) tests are ordered from the same account at FamilyTreeDNA.

You want all 3 of your tests on the same account (called a kit number) so that you can use the advanced search features that display people who match you on combinations of multiple kinds of tests. For example, if you’re a male, do your Y-DNA matches also match you on the autosomal Family Finder test, and if so, how closely? Advanced matching also provides X matching tools.

X DNA is included in autosomal tests. X DNA has a distinct matching pattern for males and females which makes it uniquely useful for genealogy. I wrote about X DNA matching here.

If you upload your autosomal results to FamilyTreeDNA from another company, you’re only uploading a raw DNA file, not the DNA itself, so FamilyTreeDNA will need to send you a swab kit to test your Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA. If you upload your autosomal DNA, simply sign in to your kit, purchase the Y-DNA and/or mitochondrial DNA tests and they will send you a swab kit.

If you test directly at FamilyTreeDNA, you can add any test easily by simply signing in and placing an order. They will use your archived DNA from your swab sample, as long as there’s enough left and it’s of sufficient quality.

Fish In All Ponds

The first important thing to do in your grandparent search is to be sure you’re fishing in all ponds. In other words, be sure you’ve tested at all 4 vendors, or uploaded files to FamilyTreeDNA and MyHeritage.

When you upload files to those vendors, be sure to purchase the unlock for their advanced tools, because you’re going to utilize everything possible.

If you have relatively close matches at other vendors, ask if they will upload their files too. The upload is free. Not only will they receive additional matches, and another set of ethnicity results, their results will help you by associating your matches with specific sides of your family.

Why Order Multiple Tests Now Instead of Waiting?

I encourage testers to order their tests at the beginning of their journey, not one at a time. Each new test from a vendor takes about 6-8 weeks from the time you initially order – they send the test, you swab or spit, return it, and they process your DNA. Of course, uploading takes far less time.

If you’re adding elapsed time, two autosomal tests (Ancestry and 23andMe), two uploads (FamilyTreeDNA and MyHeritage,) a Y-DNA and a mitochondrial DNA test, if all purchased serially, one after the other, means you’ll be waiting about 6-8 months.

Do you want to wait 6-8 months? Can you afford to?

Part of that answer has to do with what, exactly, you’re seeking.

A Name or Information?

Are you seeking the name of a person, or are you seeking information about that person? With grandparents, you may be hoping to meet them, and time may be of the essence. Time delayed may not be able to be recovered or regained.

Most people don’t just want to put a name to the person they are seeking – they want to learn about them. You will have different matches at each company. Even after you identify the person you seek, the people you match at each company may have information about them, their photos, know about their life, family, and their ancestors. They may be able and willing to facilitate an introduction if that’s what you seek.

One cousin that I assisted discovered that his father had died just 6 weeks before he made the connection. He was heartsick.

Having data from all vendors simultaneously will allow you to compile that data and work with it together as well as separately. Using your “best” matches at each company, augmented by both Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA can make MUCH shorter work of this search.

Your Y-DNA, if you’re a male will give you insights into your surname line, and the Big-Y test now comes with estimates of how far in the past you share a common ancestor with other men that have taken the Big-Y test. This can be a HUGE boon to a male trying to figure out his surname line.

Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA, respectively, will eliminate many people from being your mother or father, or your direct paternal or direct maternal line ancestor. Both provide insights into which population and where that population originated as well. In other words, it provides you lineage-specific information not available elsewhere.

Your Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA can also provide critically important information about whether that direct line ancestor belonged to an endogamous population, and where they came from.

Strategies

You may be tempted to think that you only need to test at one vendor, or at the vendor with the largest database, but that’s not necessarily true.

Here’s a table of my closest matches at the 4 vendors.

Vendor Closest Maternal Closest Paternal Comments
Ancestry 1C, 1C1R Half 1C, 2C I recognized both of the maternal and neither of the paternal.
23andMe 2C, 2C 1C1R, half-gr-niece Recognized both maternal, one paternal
MyHeritage Mother uploaded, 1C Half-niece, half 1C Recognized both maternal, one paternal
FamilyTreeDNA Mother tested, 1C1R Parent/child, half-gr-niece Recognized all 4

To be clear, I tested my mother at FamilyTreeDNA before she passed away, but if I was an adoptee searching for my mother, that’s the first database she would be in. As her family, we were able to order the Family Finder test from her archived DNA after she had passed away. I then uploaded her DNA file to MyHeritage, but she’ll never be at either 23andMe or Ancestry because they don’t accept uploads and she clearly can’t test.

Additionally, being able to identify maternal matches by viewing shared matches with my mother separates out close matches from my paternal side.

Let’s put this another way, I stand a MUCH BETTER chance of unraveling this mystery with the combined closest matches of all 4 databases instead of the top ones from just one database.

I’m providing analysis methodologies for working with results from all of the vendors together, in case your answer is not immediately obvious. Taking multiple tests facilitates using all of these tools immediately, not months later. Solving the puzzle sooner means you may not miss valuable connection opportunities.

You may also discover that the door slams shut with some people, but another match may be unbelievably helpful. Don’t unnecessarily limit your possibilities.

Here’s the testing and upload strategy I recommend.

What When Ancestry 23andMe MyHeritage FamilyTreeDNA GEDmatch
Order autosomal test Initially Yes Yes Upload Upload Upload
Order Big-Y DNA test if male Initially Yes
Order mitochondrial DNA test Initially Yes
Upload free autosomal file From Ancestry or 23andMe Yes Yes Yes
Unlock Advanced Tools When upload file $29 $19 $9.95 month
Includes X Matching No Yes No Yes Yes
Chromosome Browser, segment location information No Yes Yes Yes Yes

When you upload a DNA file to a vendor site, only upload one file per site, per tester. Otherwise, multiple tests simply glom up everyone’s match list with multiple matches to the same person and can be very confusing.

  • One person took an autosomal test at a company that accepts uploads, forgot about it, uploaded a file from another vendor later, and immediately thought she had found her parent. She had not. She “found” herself.
  • Another person though she had found two sisters, but one person had uploaded their own file from two different vendors.

Multiple vendor sites reveal multiple close matches to different people which increase your opportunity to discover INFORMATION about your family, not just the identity of the person.

Match Ranges

Given that we are searching for an unknown maternal grandfather, your mother may not have had any (known) full siblings. The “best” match would be to a full or half siblings to your parents, or their descendants, depending on how old your grandparents would be.

Let’s take the “worst case” scenario, meaning there are no full siblings AND there are many possible generations between you and the people you may match.

Now, let’s look at DNAPainter’s Shared cM tool.

You’re going to be looking for someone who is either your mother’s half sibling on her father’s side, or who is a full sibling.

If your mother is adopted, it’s possible that she has or had full siblings. If your mother was born circa 1920, it’s likely that you will be matching the next generation, or two, or three.

However, if your mother was born later, you could be matching her siblings directly.

I’m going to assume half siblings for this example, because they are more difficult than full siblings.

Full sibling relationships for your mother’s siblings are listed at right. Your full aunt or uncle at top, then their descendant generations below.

At left, in red, are the half-sibling relationships and the matching amounts.

You can see that if you’re dealing with half 1C3R (half first cousin three times removed,) you may not match.

Therefore, in order to isolate matches, it’s imperative to test every relevant relative possible.

Who’s Relevant for DNA Testing?

Who is relevant to test If you’re attempting to identify your maternal grandfather?

The goal is to be able to assign matches to the most refined ancestor possible. In other words, if you can assign someone to either your grandmother’s line, or your grandfather’s line, that’s better than assigning the person to your grandparents jointly.

Always utilize the tests of the people furthest up the tree, meaning the oldest generations. Their DNA is less-diluted, meaning it has been divided fewer times. Think about who is living and might be willing to test.

You need to be able to divide your matches between your parents, and then between your grandparents on your mother’s side.

  • Test your parents, of course, and any of their known siblings, half or full.
  • If those siblings have passed away, test as many of their children as you can.
  • If any of your grandparents are living, test them
  • If BOTH of your grandparents on the same side aren’t available to test, test any, preferably all, living aunts or uncles.
  • If your maternal grandmother had siblings, test them or their descendants if they are deceased.
  • If your parents are deceased, test your aunts, uncles, full siblings and half-siblings on your mother’s side. (Personally, I’d test all half-siblings, not just maternal.)
  • Half-siblings are particularly valuable because there is no question which “side” your shared DNA came from. They will match people you don’t because they received part of your parent’s DNA that you did not.

Furthermore, shared matches to half-siblings unquestionably identify which parent those matches are through.

Essentially, you’re trying to account for all matches that can be assigned to your grandparents whose identities you know – leaving only people who descend from your unknown maternal grandfather.

Testing your own descendants will not aid your quest. There is no need to test them for this purpose, given that they received half of your DNA.

I wrote about why testing close relatives is important in the article Superpower: Your Aunts’ and Uncles’ DNA is Your DNA Too – Maximize Those Matches!

Create or Upload a Tree

Three of the four major vendors, plus GEDMatch, support and utilize family trees.

You’ll want to either upload or create a tree at each of the vendor sites.

You can either upload a GEDCOM file from your home computer genealogy software, or you can create a tree at one of the vendors, download it, and upload to the others. I described that process at Ancestry, here.

Goal

Your goal is to work with your highest matches first to determine how they are related to you, thereby eliminating matches to known lineages.

Assuming you’re only searching for the identity of one grandparent, it’s beneficial to have done enough of your genealogy on your three known grandparents to be able to assign matches from those lines to those sides.

Step 1 is to check each vendor for close matches that might fall into that category.

The Top 15 at Each Vendor

Your closest several autosomal matches are the most important and insightful. I begin with the top 15 autosomal results at each vendor, initially, which provides me with the best chance of meaningful close relationship discoveries.

Create a Spreadsheet or Chart

I hate to use that S word (spreadsheet), because I don’t want non-technical people to be discouraged. So, I’m going to show you how I set up a spreadsheet and you can simply create a chart or even draw this out on paper if you wish.

I’ve color-coded columns for each of my 4 grandparents. The green column is the target Maternal Grandfather whose identity I’m seeking.

I match our first example; Erik, at 417 cM. Based on various pieces of information, taken together, I’ve determined that I’m Erik’s half 1C1R. His 8 great-grandparent surnames, or the ones he has provided, indicate that I’m related to Eric on my paternal grandfather’s line.

You’ll want to record your closest matches in this fashion.

Let’s look at how to find this information and work with the tools at the individual vendors.

23andMe

Let’s start at 23andMe, because they create a potential genetic tree for you, which may or may not be accurate.

I have two separate tests at 23andMe. One is a V3 and one is a V4 test. I keep one in its pristine state, and I work with the second one. You’ll see two of “me” in the tree, and that’s why.

23andMe makes it easy to see estimated relationships, although they are not always correct. Generally, they are close, and they can be quite valuable.

Click on any image to enlarge

The maternal and paternal “sides” may not be positioned where genealogists are used to seeing them. Remember, 23andMe has no genealogy trees, so they are attempting to construct a genetic tree based on how people are related to you and to each other, with no prior knowledge. They do sometimes have issues with half-relationships, so I’d encourage you to use this tree to isolate people to the three grandparents you know.

In my case, I was able to determine the maternal and paternal sides easily based on known cousins. This is the perfect example of why it’s important to test known relatives from both sides of your family.

My paternal side, at right, in blue, was easy because I recognized my half-sister’s family, and because of known cousins who I recognized from having tested elsewhere. I’ve worked with them for years. The blue stars show people I could identify, mostly second cousins.

My maternal side is at left, in red. Normally, for genealogists, the maternal side is at right, and the paternal at left, so don’t make assumptions, and don’t let this positioning throw you.

I’m pretending I don’t know who my maternal grandfather is. I was able to identify my maternal grandmother’s side based on a known second cousin.

That leaves my target – my maternal grandfather’s line.

All of the matches to the left of the red circle would, by process of elimination, be on my maternal grandfather’s side.

The next step would be to figure out how the 5 people descending from my maternal grandfather’s line are related to each other – through which of their ancestors.

On the DNA Relatives match list, here’s what needs to be checked:

  • Do your matches share surnames with you or your ancestors?
  • Do they show surnames in common with each other?
  • Is there a common location?
  • Birth year which helps you understand their potential generation.
  • Did they list their grandparents’ birthplaces?
  • Did they provide a family tree link?
  • Do they also match each other using the Relatives in Common feature?
  • Do they triangulate, indicated by “DNA Overlap” in Relatives in Common?
  • Who else is on the Relatives in Common list, and what do they have in common with each other?
  • Looking at your Ancestry Composition compared with theirs, what are your shared populations, and are they relevant? If you are both 100% European, then shared populations aren’t useful, but if both people share the same minority ancestry, especially on the same segments, it may indeed be relevant – especially if it can’t be accounted for on the known sides of the family.

Reach out to these people and see what they know about their genealogy, if they have tested elsewhere, and if they have a genealogy tree someplace that you can view.

If they can tell you their grandparents’ names, birth and death dates and locations, you can check public sources like WikiTree, FamilySearch and Geni, or build trees for them. You can also use Newspaper resources, like Newspapers.com, NewspaperArchive and the newspapers at MyHeritage.

I added the top 15 23andMe matches into the spreadsheet I created.

You’ll notice that not many people at 23andMe enter surnames. However, if you can identify individuals from your 3 known lines, you can piggyback the rest by using Relatives in Common in conjunction with the genetic tree placement.

Be sure to check all the people that are connected to the target line in your genetic tree.

You’ll want to harvest your DNA segments to paint at DNAPainter if you don’t solve this mystery with initial reviews at each vendor.

Ancestry

Let’s move to Ancestry next.

At Ancestry, you’ll want to start with your closest matches on your match list.

Ancestry classifies “Close Matches” as anyone 200 cM or greater, which probably won’t reach as far down as the matches we’ll want to include.

Some of the categories in the Shared cM Chart from DNAPainter, above, don’t work based on ages, so I’ve eliminated those. I also know, for example, that someone who could fall in the grandparent/grandchild category (blue star,) in my case, does not, so must be a different relationship.

Second cousins, who share great-grandparents, can be expected to share about 229 cM of DNA on average, or between 41 and 592 cM. First cousins share 866 cM, and half first cousins share 449 cM on average.

I have 13 close matches (over 200 cM), but I’m including my top 15 at each vendor, so I added two more. You can always go back and add more matches if necessary. Just keep in mind that the smaller the match, the greater the probability that it came from increasingly distant generations before your grandparents. Your sweet spot to identify grandparents is between 1C and 2C.

I need to divide my close matches into 4 groups, each one equating to a grandparent. Record this on your spreadsheet.

You can group your matches at Ancestry using colored dots, which means you can sort by those groups.

You can also select a “side” for a match by clicking on “Yes” under the question, “Do you recognize them?”

Initially, you want to determine if this person is related to you on your mother’s or father side, and hopefully, through which grandparent.

Recently, Ancestry added a feature called SideView which allows testers to indicate, based on ethnicity, which side is “parent 1” and which side is “parent 2.” I wrote about that, here.

Make your selection, assuming you can tell which “side” of you descends from which parent based on ethnicity and/or shared matches. How you label “parent 1,” meaning either maternal or paternal, determines how Ancestry assigns your matches, when possible.

Using these tools, which may not be completely accurate, plus shared matches with people you can identify, divide your matches among your three known grandparents, meaning that the people you cannot assign will be placed in the fourth “unknown” column.

On my spreadsheet, I assign all of my closest matches to one of my grandparents. Michael is my first cousin (1C) and we share both maternal grandparents, so he’s not helpful in the division because he can’t be assigned to only one grandparent.

The green maternal grandfather is who I’m attempting to identify.

There are 4 people, highlighted in yellow, who don’t fall into the other three grandparent lines, so they get added to the green column and will be my focus.

I would be inclined to continue adding matches using a process known as the Leeds Method, until I had several people in each category. Looking back at the DNAPainter cM chart, at this point, we don’t have anyone below 200 cM and the matches we need might be below that threshold. The more matches you have to work with, the better.

At Ancestry, you cannot download your matches into a spreadsheet, nor can you work with other clustering tools such as Genetic Affairs, so you’ll have to build out your spreadsheet manually.

Check for the same types of information that I reviewed at 23andMe:

  • Review trees, if your matches have them, minimally recording the surnames of their 8 great-grandparents.
  • Review shared matches, looking for common names in the trees in recent generations.
  • View shared matches with people with whom you have a “Common Ancestor” indication, which means a ThruLine. You won’t have Thrulines with your target grandparent, of course, but Thrulines will allow you to place the match in one of the other columns. I wrote about ThruLines here, here and here.
  • ThruLines sometimes suggests ancestors based on other people’s trees, so be EXCEEDINGLY careful with potential ancestor suggestions. That’s not to say you should discount those suggestions. Just treat them as tree hints that may have been copy/pasted hundreds of times, because that’s what they are.

I make notes on each match so I can easily see the connection by scanning without opening the match.

Now, I have a total of 30 entries on my spreadsheet, 15 from 23and Me and 15 from Ancestry.

Why Not Use Autosclusters?

Even with vendors who allow or provide cluster tools, I don’t use an automated autocluster tool at this point. Autocluster tools often omit your closest matches because your closest matches would be in nearly half of all your clusters, which isn’t exactly informative. However, for this purpose, those are the very matches we need to evaluate.

After identifying groups of people that represent the missing grandparent, using our spreadsheet methodology, autoclusters could be useful to identify common surnames and even to compare the trees of our matches using AutoTree, AutoPedigree and AutoKinship. AutoClusters cannot be utilized at Ancestry, but is available through MyHeritage and at GEDmatch, or through Genetic Affairs for 23andMe and FamilyTreeDNA.

Next, let’s move to FamilyTreeDNA.

FamilyTreeDNA

FamilyTreeDNA is the only vendor that provides Family Matching, also known as “bucketing.” FamilyTreeDNA assigns your matches to either a paternal or maternal bucket, or both, based on triangulated matches with someone you’ve linked to a profile in your tree.

The key to Family Matching is to link known Family Finder matches to their profile cards in your tree.

Clicking on the Family Tree link at the top of your personal page allows you to link your matches to the profile cards of your matches.

FamilyTreeDNA utilizes these linked matches to assign those people, and matches who match you and those people, both, on at least one common segment, to the maternal or paternal tabs on your match list.

Always link as many known people as possible (red stars) which will result in more matches being bucketed and assigned to parents’ sides for you, even if neither parent is available to test.

I wrote about Triangulation in Action at FamilyTreeDNA, here.

You can see at the top of my match list that I have a total of 8000 matches of which 3422 are paternal, 1517 are maternal and 3 match on both sides. Full siblings, their (and my) children and their descendants will always match on both sides. People with endogamy across both parents may have several matches on both sides.

If your relevant parent has tested, always work from their test.

Because we are searching for the maternal grandfather, in this case, we can ignore all tests that are bucketed as paternal matches.

Given that we are searching for my maternal grandfather, I probably have not been able to link as many maternal matches, other than possibly ones from my maternal grandmother. This means that the maternal grandfather’s matches are not bucketed because there are no identified matches to link on that side of my tree.

If you sort by maternal and paternal tabs, you’ll miss people who aren’t bucketed, meaning they have no maternal or paternal icon, so I recommend simply scanning down the list and processing maternal matches and non-bucketed matches.

By being able to confidently ignore paternally bucketed matches and only processing maternal and non-assigned matches, this is equivalent to processing the first 48 total matches. If I were to only look at the first 15 matches, 12 were paternal and only 3 are maternal.

Using bucketing at FamilyTreeDNA is very efficient and saves a lot of work.

Omitting paternal matches also means we are including smaller matches which could potentially be from common ancestors further back in the tree. Or, they could be younger testers. Or simply smaller by the randomness of recombination.

FamilyTreeDNA is a goldmine, with 16 of 20 maternal matches being from the unknown maternal grandfather.

Next, let’s see what’s waiting at MyHeritage.

MyHeritage

MyHeritage is particularly useful if your lineage happens to be from Europe. Of course, if you’re searching for an unknown person, you probably have no idea where they or their ancestors are from. Two of my best matches first appeared at MyHeritage.

Of course, your matches with people who descend from your unknown maternal grandfather won’t have any Theories of Family Relativity, as that tool is based on BOTH a DNA match plus a tree or document match. However, Theories is wonderful to group your matches to your other three grandparents.

MyHeritage provides a great deal of information for each match, including common surnames with your tree. If you recognize the surnames (and shared matches) as paternal or maternal, then you can assign the match. However, the matches you’re most interested in are the highest matches without any surnames in common with you – which likely point to the missing maternal grandfather.

However, those people may, and probably do, have surnames in common with each other.

Of the matches who aren’t attributed to the other three grandparents, the name Ferverda arises again and again. So does Miller, which suggests the grandparent or great-grandparent couple may well be Ferverda/Miller.

Let’s continue working through the process with our spreadsheet and see what we can discover about those surnames.

Our 60 Results

Of the 60 total results, 15 from each vendor, a total of 24 cannot be assigned to other columns through bucketing or shared matches, so are associated with the maternal grandfather. Of course, Michael who descends from both of my maternal grandparents won’t be helpful initially.

Cheryl, Donald and Michael are duplicates at different vendors, but the rest are not.

Of the relevant matches, the majority, 12 are from FamilyTreeDNA, four each are from Ancestry and MyHeritage, and three are from 23andMe.

Of the names provided in the surname fields of matches, in matches’ trees in the first few generations, and the testers’ surnames, Ferverda is repeated 12 times, for 50% of the time. Miller is repeated 9 times, so it’s likely that either of those are the missing grandfather’s surname. Of course, if we had Y-DNA, we’d know the answer to that immediately.

Comparing trees of my matches, we find John Ferverda as the common ancestor between two different matches. John is the son of Hiram Ferverda and Eva Miller who are found in several trees.

That’s a great hint. But is this the breakthrough I need?

What’s Next?

The next step is to look for connections between the maternal grandmother, Edith Lore, who is known in our example, and a Ferverda male. He is probably one of the sons of Hiram Ferverda and Eva Miller. Do they lived in the same area? In close proximity? Do they attend the same church or school? Are they neighbors or live close to the family or some of their relatives? Does she have connections with Ferverda family members? We are narrowing in.

Some of Hiram and Eva’s sons might be able to be eliminated based on age or other factors, or at least be less likely candidates. Any of their children who had moved out of state when the child was conceived would be less likely candidates. Age would be a factor, as would opportunity.

Target testing of the Ferverda sons’ children, or the descendants of their children would (probably) be able to pinpoint which of their sons is more closely related to me (or my mother) than the rest.

In our case, indeed, John Ferverda is the son we are searching for and his descendant, Michael is the highest match on the list. Cheryl and Donald descend from John’s brother, which eliminates him as a candidate. Another tester descends from a third Ferverda son, which eliminates that son as well.

Michael, my actual first cousin with a 755 cM match at one vendor, and 822 cM at a second vendor, is shown by the MyHeritage cM Explainer with an 88% probability that he is my first cousin.

However, when I’m trying to identify the maternal grandfather, which is half of that couple, I need to focus one generation further back in time to eliminate other candidates.

The second and third closest matches are both Donald at 395 cM and Cheryl at 467 cM who also share the same Ferverda/Miller lineage and are the children of my maternal grandfather’s brother.

On the spreadsheet, I need to look at the trees of people who have both Ferverda and Miller, which brought me to both Cheryl and Donald, then Michael, which allowed me to identify John Ferverda, unquestionably, as my grandfather based on the cM match amounts.

Cheryl and Donald, who are confirmed full siblings, and my mother either have to be first cousins, or half siblings. Their match with mother is NOT in the half-sibling range for one sibling, and on the lower edge with the other. Mother also matches Michael as a nephew, not more distantly as she would if he were a first cousin once removed (1C1R) instead of a nephew.

Evaluating these matches combined confirms that my maternal grandfather is indeed John Ferverda.

What About X DNA?

The X chromosome has a unique inheritance path which is sometimes helpful in this circumstance, especially to males.

Women inherit an X chromosome from both parents, but males inherit an X chromosome from ONLY their mother. A male inherits a Y chromosome from his father which is what makes him male. Women inherit two X chromosomes, one from each parent, and no Y, which is what makes them female.

Therefore, if you are a male and are struggling with which side of your tree matches are associated with, the X chromosome may be of help.

Your mother passed her X chromosome to you, which could be:

  • Her entire maternal X, meaning your maternal grandmother’s X chromosome
  • Her entire paternal X, meaning your maternal grandfather’s X chromosome (which descends from his mother)
  • Some combination of your maternal grandmother and maternal grandfather’s chromosomes

One thing we know positively is that a male’s X matches are ALWAYS from their maternal side only, so that should help when dividing a male’s matches maternally or paternally. Note – be aware of potential pedigree collapse, endogamy and identical-by-chance matches if it looks like a male has a X match on his father’s side.

Unfortunately, the X chromosome cannot assist females in the same way, because females inherit an X from both parents. Therefore, they can match people in the same was as a male, but also in additional ways.

  • Females will match their paternal grandmother on her entire X chromosome, and will match one or both of their maternal grandparents on the X chromosome.
  • Females will NEVER match their paternal grandfather’s X chromosome because their father did not inherit an X chromosome from his father.
  • Males will match one or both of their maternal grandparents on their X chromosome.
  • Males will NEVER match their paternal grandparents, because males do not receive an X chromosome from their father.

The usefulness of X DNA matching depends on the inheritance path of both the tester AND their match.

When Can Y-DNA or Mitochondrial DNA Help with Grandparent Identification?

If you recall, I selected the maternal grandfather as the person to seek because no tester carries either the Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA of their maternal grandfather. In other words, this was the most difficult identification, meaning that any of the other three grandparents would be, or at least could be, easier with the benefit of Y-DNA and/or mitochondrial DNA testing.

In addition to matching, both Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA will provide testers with location origins, both continental and often much more specific locations based on where other testers and matches are from.

Y-DNA often provides a surname.

Let’s see how these tests, matches and results can assist us.

  • Paternal grandfather – If I was a male descended from John Ferverda paternally, I could have tested both my autosomal DNA PLUS my Y-DNA, which would have immediately revealed the Ferverda surname via Y-DNA. Two Ferverda men are shown in the Ferverda surname DNA project, above.

That revelation would have confirmed the Ferverda surname when combined with the high frequency of Ferverda found among autosomal matches on the spreadsheet.

  • Maternal grandmother – If we were searching for a maternal grandmother, both the male and female sibling testers (as shown in the pedigree chart) would have her mitochondrial DNA which could provide matches to relevant descendants. Mitochondrial DNA at both FamilyTreeDNA and 23andMe could also eliminate anyone who does not match on a common haplogroup, when comparing 23andMe results to 23andMe results, and FamilyTreeDNA to FamilyTreeDNA results at the same level.

At 23andMe, only base level haplogroups are provided, but they are enough to rule out a direct matrilineal line ancestor.

At FamilyTreeDNA, the earlier HVR1 and HVR2 tests provide base level haplogroups, while full sequence testing provides granular, specific haplogroups. Full sequence is the recommended testing level.

  • Paternal grandmother – If we were searching for a paternal grandmother, testers would, of course, need either their father to test his mitochondrial DNA, or for one of his siblings to test which could be used in the same way as described for maternal grandmother matching.

Summary

Successfully identifying a grandparent is dependent on many factors. Before you make that identification, it’s very difficult to know which are more or less important.

For example, if the grandparent is from a part of the world with few testers, you will have far fewer matches, potentially, than other lines from more highly tested regions. In my case, two of my four grandparents’ families, including Ferverda, immigrated in the 1850s, so they had fewer matches than families that have been producing large families in the US for generations.

Endogamy may be a factor.

Family size in past and current generations may be a factor.

Simple luck may be a factor.

Therefore, it’s always wise to test your DNA, and that of your parents and close relatives if possible, and upload to all of the autosomal databases. Then construct an analysis plan based on:

  • How you descend from the grandparent in question, meaning do you carry their X DNA, Y-DNA or mitochondrial DNA.
  • Who else is available to test their autosomal DNA to assist with shared matches and the process of elimination.
  • Who else is available to test for Y-DNA and/or mitochondrial DNA of the ancestor in question.

If you don’t find the answer initially, schedule a revisit of your matches periodically and update your spreadsheet. Sometimes DNA and genealogy is a waiting same.

Just remember, luck always favors the prepared!

Resources

You may find the following resource articles beneficial in addition to the links provided throughout this article.

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